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I • 










































































































BROADOAKS 

BY ' 

<1 

m! gA MCCLELLAND 


AUTHOR OF 


“oblivion,” “princess,” “A SELF-MADE MAN,” 
“BURKETT’S LUCK,” “WHITE HERON,” 
ETC., ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 



ST. PAUL 


u . /3 



stiff! y 


The Price-McGill Company 

455-473 CEDAR STREET 


Cop N) 


Copyrighted 1893 

BY 

THE PRICE-McGILL CO. 


PRINTED AND PLATED BY 

THE PRICE-McGILL COMPANY 

AT. PAUL, MTNN 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


When Bruce * * * brought a chair 

into the corner behind the instrument 
she welcome him with a smile, - - Frontispiece. 

And planted herself with lusty barking 
in front of a gentleman who was ad- page, 

vancing, ------- 33 

“ If Miss Rcbie was to marry that gent’- 
man, ’t would be a mighty good thing,” 81 

With a smile at her own foolishness, she 
clicked the latch of the gate sharply 


and hurried after her companion, - 129 

A dark hand stole downward for the 

spade, 225 




















































































































BROADOAKS. 


CHAPTER I. 

There had been Kennedy s in Virginia lor 
considerably upward of a century. In fact, 
ever since one Julian Kennedy, surgeon in the 
royal navy, left his ship at Jamestown with 
a grant in his pocket empowering him to 
take up as much land in the James river 
valley as would suffice for the maintenance 
of himself and his family, and to have and to 
hold the same, subject to quit-rents to the 
crown, for the honor and glory of God and 
the King. 

In pursuance of his privileges, the founder 
of the Virginia branch of the Kennedy family 
had pushed on up the river, in the track of 
one of the many expeditions into the trans- 
montane that had followed that of Governor 
Spotswood, and located among the spurs of 
the Blue Ridge, modestly appropriating for 


6 


BROADOAKS. 


himself and his posterity twenty miles of the 
arable lands lying on either side of the river. 
Being a man of enterprise and action, he had 
gone vigorously to work on his new posses- 
sions, bringing over settlers to clear and 
improve his lands, arranging his affairs and 
establishing his family. His method of clear- 
ing the “forest primeval” and making the 
soil available for agriculture had been 
unique and well worthy the attention of 
political economists. Like most great 
schemes it had been simple, and had mainly 
consisted in planting his retainers, in hastily 
constructed log-cabins, here and there, on his 
estate, with an axe and six months pro- 
visions, to a man, and the comprehensive 
order to “cut themselves out.” 

When matters had been arranged to his 
liking, Dr. Kennedy had left his people to 
follow out his instructions and betaken him- 
self again to his profession on the high seas 
in order to discharge his quit-rents. His 
wife, from all tradition a most intrepid 
dame, had ruled in his stead; and, doubtless, 
proved herself an efficient regent, for when, 


BROADOAKS. 


7 


after an absence of seven years, Her lord had 
returned to her, he found that, under her 
administration, his retainers had obeyed him 
to the letter, and that forest and under- 
growth were giving place to fields of corn 
and tobacco. 

There had been a story — created and cir- 
culated by the malevolent and foolish— to 
the effect that during all those seven years 
Dr. Kennedy had never communicated with 
his wife by word nor sign. And, that, so far 
from resenting the neglect, Madam Kennedy 
— as she had been called, had sustained the 
separation from her husband with exasper- 
ating fortitude; riding over the vast estate 
on her black horse, Tempest, with a pistol at 
her saddle bow, and a volume of Chaucer in 
her pocket (for the lady affected to be liter- 
ary), attending to her affairs and preserving 
an appearance of the most unruffled tranquil- 
ity. Indeed, the provocation given, by her 
indifference, to comment, seems to have been 
so great that bold spirits went so far as to 
aver that, believing her liege lord safely 
gathered to his fathers, Madam Kennedy 


8 


BROADOAKS. 


had entertained thoughts of another mate, 
and that Dr. Kennedy had reappeared only 
just in time to preserve his wife from bigamy. 
Such calumnies, of course, were baseless, save 
in malice, and no true Kennedy would for a 
moment give them credence, for, with them, 
it is a well known fact, that among the 
family archives, rest sundry ancient bills and 
letters, yellow with age, and quaintly spelled 
and worded, wherein is set forth that Dr. 
Kennedy, as became a loving lord and hus- 
band, did on such and such a date, cause 
supplies of various sorts, including “a jocund 
satin petticoat and a bodice picked out with 
silver” and a “cloak of carmine taffety such 
as beseemeth ye ladyship’s degree,” to be 
conveyed from the mother country to the 
colony of Virginia for the use and behoof of 
Mistress Julian Kennedy. 

After his seven years of voyaging Dr. 
Kennedy had abandoned the sea and settled 
on his estate, giving his attention thereafter 
to the rearing of children and race-horses, 
and the cultivation of tobacco. As his sons 
had grown to manhood he had given to each 


BROADOAKS. 


9 


a generous slice of his land, and settled them 
around him, so that in course of time quite a 
colony of Kennedys had been established in 
that twenty mile radius. There, through 
succeeding years, they had lived and 
quarreled, intermarried and fought, loving 
and abusing one another with great satis- 
faction to themselves and, as there was still 
plenty of elbow-room, little harm to the 
community. They had served their king and 
country in judicial capacities and the house 
of burgesses, and afterward their country 
alone during the stormy times of the Revolu- 
tion. 

In the slumberous season that followed the 
establishment and recognition of the republic 
they had allowed themselves to gradually 
sink into the indolent cultured life of 
Southern country gentlemen ; but every now 
and again the family would furnish the com- 
monwealth with an orator, lawyer, or 
physician of note, in addition to many 
famous beauties, so that the old name had 
been kept green within the memories of men. 

The outbreak of the civil war had, of 


10 


BROADOAKS. 


course, found all the Kennedys, able to bear 
arms, enrolled in the service of the Confeder- 
acy, and the overthrow of their hopes had 
left them impoverished and broken down. 

Colonel Julian Kennedy, the present owner 
of the old family seat of Broadoaks, had been 
left a widower, about the beginning of the 
war, with four children; two sons, nearly 
grown, and two daughters — the latter small 
children, one little more than an infant. The 
sons, George and Julian, lads of sixteen and 
eighteen, had insisted, like many other brave 
hearted boys, on responding to that last 
mad appeal of a dying nation for troops, 
and had fallen, a useless sacrifice to a broken 
cause. The little girls, Bernard and Rebecca 
— commonly called “Rebie” — had been too 
young at the time of their family misfortunes 
to be seriously affected by them. Of their 
mother they had little or no recollection, and 
her place had been supplied to them by their 
grandmother, and also, in a measure, by 
their colored “Mammy.” Looking back- 
ward through the years, the episode of the 
war was to the girls like some shadowy, far- 


BROADOAKS. 


11 


away dream, filled with distorted images, 
and known rather from hearsay than from 
tangible, individual memories. Of the vital 
excitement which had permeated all things 
and caused life to seem as though lived amid 
an atmosphere surcharged with electricity 
they, of course, knew nothing. 

To Bernard, the elder of the pair, would 
come, dimly, at times, recollection of strange 
men in gray uniforms, who had played with 
and kissed her; and more distinct memories 
of the horses which had stood always 
saddled in the stables, on which Uncle 
Peyton, the colored hostler, had let her ride 
up and down the stable yard with baby 
Rebie, proudly astride, in front of her. Then 
would come intervals of quiet, when there 
would be no soldiers, and no horses to ride, 
and the plantation work would go on as 
usual. Even the end was indistinct, 
although Mammy would often go over for 
them the sad, sad story of the loss of their 
brother George, the fall of Richmond, and of 
how the sound of the guns had come to them 
all through that last desperate march to 


12 


BROADOAKS. 


Appomattox; and of how aged and wan 
their grandmother’s face had grown as the 
leaden hours had dragged along bringing 
nearer and more near the certainty that the 
curtain had fallen forever on the saddest, 
bloodiest drama of the age. 

The only day that stood out clearly in 
Bernard’s memory was the one on which 
their uncle Edward Kennedy and young 
Geoffrey Bruce had brought home their father 
and Julian, both so still and white. The 
tears had gathered thick in Uncle Ned’s eyes 
as he kissed them, and had falleij in bright 
drops on little Rebie’s curls. Then Julian 
had been laid to rest in the old burying- 
ground by George’s side ; and for a long time 
they had never seen their father — only their 
grandmother’s anxious face, and Mammy’s 
warning finger if they should forget and 
make a noise. 

After a time their father had grown strong 
again, and able to take into his hands and 
piece together the broken fragments of his 
life. They had become accustomed to the 
sound of the crutches instead of the quick, 


BROADOAKS. 


13 


firm step which formerly had “rung through 
passageway and hall” of the old mansion. 
And, with the passing of many seasons, the 
graves had been covered thick with myrtle 
and with grass; and Time’s merciful finger 
had trained the ivy of memory over the 
heart ruins. 


CHAPTER II. 


“Bernard!” exclaimed Rebie, one pleas- 
ant morning in the last of May, “Bernard, 
do put down your work, and come and tell 
me who this man can be. Quick ! run ! 
before he gets out of sight behind the trees. 
I’ve been watching him ‘ peruse' down the 
road, as Uncle Peyton would say, for five 
minutes. He resembles James’ horseman; 
there is mystery in his maneuvers and melan- 
choly in his sombrero. The way he scruti- 
nizes the house is positively weird. I can’t 
make up my mind whether he is an artist, a 
prospective burglar, or an old acquaintance 
trying to refresh his memory.” 

“Probably an agent for mineral lands or 
patent bed-springs,” hazarded Bernard, 
placidly threading her needle and refusing to 
be beguiled from her easy chair. “Four 
have been here already this week. The iron 
ore and conches of this region appear to be 
occupying public attention just now. Or 

i4 


BROADOAKS. 


15 


maybe, since you say he scans the house 
speculatively, this man sells paint, or light- 
ning rods, or roofing, and observes that we 
cry aloud for all three. Don’t let him see 
you, Rebie, or he ’ll pounce down on us and 
stick like a burr until dinner time.” 

“He’s getting off his horse now, ” an- 
nounced Rebie. “I wish you’d come and 
look! He’s coming up the yard and he has n’t 
any saddle-bags. I don’t believe he’s an 
agent at all.” 

Bernard rose, in alarm. “Coming in!” 
she exclaimed, “and father not in the house 
to hammer into his head that we don’t want 
any of anything he’s got to sell! Shake your 
head at him, Rebie! Shake it hard! Oh, 
dear, I’m so tired of having to impress it on 
these men that the South has no money for 
improvements.” 

Rebie laughed. “ It’s a gentleman, Bernard. 
Come and see for yourself. He fastened his 
horse to the old horse-shoe Julian nailed to 
the poplar tree outside the gate. I wonder 
how he knew it was there.” 


16 


BROADOAKS. 


Bernard advanced and peeped over her 
sister’s shoulder, half hidden by the curtain. 
The gentleman was ascending the steps, 
and she could obtain a fairly satisfactory 
view of him. The sight brought inspiration. 

“I know who he is,” she proclaimed. 
“ Mammy told me this morning that Geoffrey 
Bruce had come home, and this must be he. 
I forgot to tell you. He’s come over to see 
father. I wish he hadn’t — so soon, that is. 
It will upset father, dreadfully. He used to 
be intimate with our boys, you know, and 
was always here. He was in father’s troop 
and with him during all that terrible old time. 
It must be fully ten years since he left the 
neighborhood. He went away just after his 
mother died. How he has changed ! ” 

“I remember him a little now,” Rebie 
thoughtfully observed. “He used to ride a 
big gray horse and take me on the saddle in 
front of him, sometimes. The day Julian was 
buried he held me in his arms at the grave, 
and I got frightened and cried myself to sleep 
on his shoulder. There goes Mammy to the 
door. Oh, I wish he hadn’t come over until 


BROADOAKS. 


17 


we got used to the idea of his being at home 
again! ” 

The pair silently listened to the sound of 
opening and closing doors, and of footfalls 
along the hall. Both faces were eager, 
expectant, and a trifle sad. In a moment 
Mammy entered ; in reality elated and 
important ; but thinking it necessary to dis- 
semble, and to shake her turbaned head as 
though oppressed by woe unutterable. 

“Chil’un,” she announced, in a tone of 
varying intonations, “young Mr. Bruce done 
come over to see your pa. I tole him Mars 
Julian war out ’pon de plantation; but I 
’lowed you-all would be glad to see him. 
Lord ! Miss Bernard, honey, it went right 
th’ough me, it did, fur to see him livin’ and 
standin’ dar, arter all dese years, an’ my two 
blessed boys whar used to be so merry an’ 
joysome wid him — ” Mammy paused and 
lifted her apron to her eyes. 

Rebie suspended the operation of brushing 
her curly black hair and administered a con- 
solatory pat or two on the old woman’s 
shoulder. 


18 


BROADOAKS. 


“There, there, Mammy, don’t cry, please. 
Of course it brought back the boys to you. 
It will to poor father. You just be on the 
lookout for him and let him know that Mr. 
Bruce is here. Shall I go into the parlor now, 
Bernard, or wait for you? ” 

“Go, please. I must change my dress. I 
won’t be long.” 

Rebie walked slowly along the hall and 
opened the parlor door. What manner of 
man would he be, she wondered, this 
stranger, who was yet no stranger, but a 
part of the painful past? As she entered, a 
gentleman rose from the sofa and advanced 
to meet her with extended hand. Rebie gave 
a comprehensive glance which embraced 
every detail of appearance and costume as 
she placed her fingers in his. He was a man 
of two or three and thirty; not tall — indeed, 
scarcely taller than was the girl herself ; but 
with a sturdy, well-knit figure, a good head, 
well set on manly looking shoulders, a kind, 
handsome face and a pair of hazel eyes that 
met hers with a pleasant smile in them. 


BROADOAKS. 


19 


Rebie liked the face, and her manner became 
warmly cordial on the instant. 

“You can’t imagine,” he said, in reply to 
her words of welcome, “how glad I am to 
see you* and the old place again; or what a 
delight the mere being at home is to me. 
During an absence such as mine a man comes 
to realize the power of early associations, 
and to feel the love of home and yearning for 
familiar scenes and faces drawing him, as he 
grows older, always in one direction with a 
force which defies resistance.” 

Rebie seated herself in a low chair and 
motioned him again to his place on the sofa 
near her. 

“Time weans most men from their old 
associations,” she averred. “They niche 
into the new environment quite comfortably, 
and when brought again amid the old, feel 
cramped and ill at ease.” 

Bruce smiled at her moralizing tone. “It 
depends on the man after all,” he said. “ I’m 
a conservative sort of fellow myself, and 
never tried to take root out there. I always 
intended to come back. It was only a 


20 


BROADOAKS. 


question of time. And about three weeks 
ago, in Texas, such a big wave of homesick- 
ness broke over me that I felt like a creature 
drowning. I’ve had many a touch of mal du 
pays during the years ; but nothing like that. 
My call had come, and it seemed to me that 
if I didn’t breathe Virginia air and see 
Virginia hills again I’d die. It may sound 
womanish, but it’s true.” 

‘“The man be more of woman, she of 
man,’ ’’quoted Rebie, gaily. “Don’t apolo- 
gize, Mr. Bruce. I see you are approaching 
the ideal state. And when, if I may inquire, 
did the homesick wave deposit you at your 
own front door? ” 

“Yesterday afternoon. I neglected to 
serve a notice on my people, and so had the 
joy of trudging over from the station, and of 
frightening poor old Sophy nearly into a 
spasm. I got home almost on the edge of 
dark, and dust and travel had rendered my 
aspect sinister. Sophy beheld in me a 
marauder bent on rapine; she gave one hor- 
rified glance, yelled, ‘ Oh, Lordy, dars de 


BROADOAKS. 


21 


wuss one yet ! ’ dodged back into the kitchen 
and refused to parley with me.” 

‘ 1 That was a sorry welcome,” Rebie 
laughed. “How did you convince her that 
you were yourself? ” 

“Oh, I discoursed persuasively through the 
keyhole. At first she scouted every word; 
said she ‘done got used to tramps, an’ 
wa’n’t gwine bleeve nothin’ dey said ; nor let 
no stranger in de house, n’ other.’ She like- 
wise recommended me to go over the hill to 
the overseer’s house where she promised me 
cheer and comfort. Finally, however, by 
recapitulating one or two escapades of my 
boyhood, knowledge of which was sacred to 
us two alone, I induced her to open the door, 
and, when further oratory had established 
my identity, her joy was exceeding great.” 

“ Good old Sophy ! What a faithful watch- 
dog she is! About six months ago some 
negroes in the next county harbored a tramp 
for a night or two and he gave them all 
small-pox. They’ve been afraid to show 
hospitality to wanderers ever since. One 


22 


SttOADOAKS. 


can’t blame them, either ; negroes are so help- 
less in sickness.” 

They chatted on for a few moments and 
then Rebie, oblivious of previous statements 
to the contrary, remarked genially: 

“I’m glad you came to see us at once, Mr. 
Bruce. It was friendly of you.” 

Bruce looked gratified. “My footsteps 
turned instinctively toward Broadoaks as in 
the old days,” he heartily responded. “ How 
wonderfully little the place has changed ; 
gone down somewhat, like most things in 
the South; but with the same home look 
about it as of old. I stopped at the gate a 
moment to refresh my memory before com- 
ing in.” 

“We saw you,” acknowledged Rebie. “We 
were at the window in a state of excitement 
mingled with dismay over your approach. 
We took you for a vender of patent medicines 
or bed-springs, and thirsted for portcullis 
and draw-bridge to defend ourselves 
withal.” 

“How unkind you are!” remonstrated 
Bruce. “I flattered myself that my appear- 


ijROADOAKS. 


23 


atice was picturesque and my approach a 
poem. When did Mexican sombreros become 
the insignia of patent pills in Virginia ? Miss 
Kennedy, I’m disappointed in you. You 
should have more imagination.” 

Rebie glanced up, amused, and, catching 
the laughter in the hazel eyes, felt the ten 
years in which they had been unknown to 
each other shrivel up and vanish. 

“Your inner consciousness should have 
informed you of my identity,” Bruce pro- 
ceeded, “considering the fact that you were 
once called my ‘little wife,’ and in that char- 
acter exercised much authority over me. 
Do n’t you remember the day you stole off to 
the old sheep field after chinquapins ; and how 
we sought you sorrowing? I found you 
stuck in the middle of a brier-patch, and fill- 
ing the air with lamentations. Your dress 
was torn, your left shoe lost, your hands 
streaming with gore from the caresses of the 
briers; and you had nine green chinquapins 
in your pocket for your sister. From these 
perils, with unprecedented heroism, I rescued 
you, and bore you home in my arms. And 


24 


BROADOAKS. 


what is my reward? To be clean forgotten 
in ten short years!” He regarded her with 
mock tragedy. 

“A thrilling story,” mocked Rebie, “and, 
as I believe, utterly without foundation. 
No; I don’t remember anything about it, 
and you don’t either. It’s a transparent 
effort to establish a claim on my gratitude.” 

“Which you don’t intend to allow, I see,” 
retorted Bruce. “Oh, the meanness of repu- 
diating an honest obligation ! Ask Mammy 
if the annal isn’t authentic. She’ll bear me 
out. By the way, how little Mammy has 
changed. I could have imagined myself a 
boy again when she opened the door, and 
almost expected you to come to meet me in a 
short frock with your curls on your shoulders 
as you used to wear them. It was a shock 
to be welcomed by a stately young woman 
in ceremonious fashion. Other things seem 
the same; but looking at you, Bernard — or 
must it be Miss Kennedy? — I realize that 
years indeed have passed.” 

“So,” exclaimed Rebie, much amused, “you 
thought it was Bernard, did y ou ? And she 


&R0AD0A&9. 


25 


was the heroine of your reminiscences! I 
withdraw my disclaimer. It was stupid of 
me not to introduce myself when I first came 
in. I’m Rebie. ” 

Bruce looked half incredulous. 

“Rebie — baby Rebie!” he repeated. “By 
Jove, you don’t say so! It hardly seems 
possible that little Rebie could grow up. I 
always think of her as the tiny curly-haired 
creature who used to ride on my shoulder, or 
in front of the saddle of the old gray horse.” 

Rebie made some smiling rejoinder to the 
effect that he must have been unusually fond 
of children, since, from his own account, he 
had played nursemaid to both her sister and 
herself. In the midst of their badinage the 
sound of light footsteps, and the regular 
tap-tap of crutches advanced along the hall. 
Rebie’s expression changed on the instant. 

“It’s Bernard and father,” she said, and 
added : “ Please do n’t take any notice, or get 
him a chair, or anything. He can’t bear to 
be reminded of his helplessness. He don’t 
notice when Bernard and I wait on him, 


26 


fefeoAboAfcg. 


because he’s used to it; but with strangers 
it’s different.” 

The young man’s face softened. He remem- 
bered his old friend so tall and strong ; fore- 
most always in all manly sports and deeds of 
daring. It must go hard with such a nature 
to be a cripple. He advanced to meet his old 
commander with a full heart, and something 
suspiciously like moisture in the hazel eyes. 

The men clasped hands and stood regard- 
ing each other with that in their throats 
which prevented utterance. To the minds 
and memories of both by-gone scenes 
returned with startling vividness. Again they 
felt the high hopes, the bounding courage; 
again gloried in the pride of manhood, the 
pride of soldierhood ; again knew the thrill of 
battle, the anxiety of counsel, the weariness 
of march and bivouac, the restless fluctua- 
tions from hope to despair ; again they heard 
the wild music of the battle-cry ; felt the mad 
excitement of the charge, the glow of victory, 
and the anguish of defeat. 

And through the chaos of conflicting mem- 
ories one or two scenes stood boldly out, 


nROADOAKS. 


r 27 


demanding special recognition. That day 
below Richmond, when the tide of battle had 
turned against them and the reserves had been 
ordered to advance from their position on an 
acclivity to the left to the support of a divi- 
sion, sore pressed. The gallant band of 
boys had swept past them, and for an instant 
— long enough for a father to recognize his 
son, a friend to know his playmate— through 
the smoke and din of the battle, a face had 
shown distinctly— a fair, beardless face, pale 
as alabaster, the blue eyes aflame with a 
strange light ; and a voice had rung in their 
ears; a boy’s voice, soon to be silenced in 
death, shouting above the infernal roar: 
“Forward ! Charge, for your homes, and for 
Virginia! ” 

And that other scene — the lonely farmhouse 
wherein the tragic close of four years of trag- 
edy had been enacted. The disbanded troops 
grouped about, tattered, famished, well nigh 
broken-hearted with the knowledge that 
courage, endurance and suffering had availed 
them nothing; that the struggle was over, 


28 


BROADOAKS. 


and that it had been useless. And after that 
the pitifulness of the home-comings. 

With all this between them is it any won- 
der that actors in the scenes, meeting for the 
first time since those other days, should 
stand with clasped hands and moistened eyes 
fearing to speak ? 


CHAPTER III. 


For the next half hour the talk turned 
principally on the changes in the neighbor- 
hood during the past ten years. The mar- 
riages, births, deaths, comings and goings 
were all recapitulated, as well as the sales 
and dismal passing into alien hands of many 
of the old plantations. Some families had 
moved away and their places had been filled 
by strangers. Others, deep rooted as the 
oaks which surrounded their dwellings, had 
clung to the soil with desperate tenacity, 
grimly defiant of debt and lawsuits. All the 
information which Colonel Kennedy and his 
daughters could supply relative to home 
affairs was hearkened to with interest by 
Bruce. As he claimed for himself, he was a 
conservative man, possessed to a marked 
degree by the home instinct which is a char- 
acteristic of Virginians. 

Then the talk broadened and diverged, and 
they won from Bruce some account of the 

29 


30 


BROADOAKS. 


changes and events which had filled, for him, 
the interval of absence. Not much of individ- 
ual information could they glean, for Bruce 
was a shy man when it came to talking of 
himself, but enough to show them contrasts, 
and to condense and vivify their nebulous 
conceptions of the great West and of the 
possibilities which it could offer. Bruce was 
an intelligent man, with keen and trained 
powers of observation, the gift of expression 
and a subtle, dominating sense of humor. 
As he talked he was conscious of an under- 
current of amusement; the pictures of his 
western experience, with all their virility and 
vastness, placed suddenly in this old world 
environment, appeared, to him, as incon- 
gruous as would be a horse-fair held in the 
nave of a cathedral. 

His listeners were too simple minded, and, 
moreover, too enthralled by his descriptions 
to be affected by aught in the way of con- 
trast. To them, their own life was fixed; 
following immutably the lines of precedent 
and environment ; and with it they were con- 
tent. These new views of a broader horizon, 


BROADOAKS. 


31 


a more extended life, brought no unrest, no 
yearning for emulation, even when placed in 
juxtaposition with the quietude which sur- 
rounded them. They hearkened to the 
stories with keen, but impersonal interest, 
such as will be given to all impressions which 
delight the intellect, or appeal to the imagi- 
nation, but leave the emotions untouched. 
They liked to hear about the stir and bustle 
of the life beyond their quiet world, but they 
had no active wish to mingle with it. 

When, at length, Bruce took his leave the 
entire family — including Mammy and old 
Uncle Peyton, who had happened round from 
the stable-yard, ostensibly on an errand, but 
in reality to shake hands with Mr. Bruce and 
assure him that he “cert’n’y had grow’d” — 
accompanied him to the gate. They made 
much of him, too, and begged him to come 
to see them often, and rejoiced in his deter- 
mination to settle among them once more 
with a simple heartiness that touched the 
young man deeply. The life he had depicted 
for them had seemed interesting enough in 
the living, but it had not satisfied the higher, 


32 


BROADOAKS. 


finer part of his nature, as he was already 
beginning to fancy that this life might sat- 
isfy him. 

“I like him/’ announced Bernard with 
decision, as they watched him ride away. “I 
like him exceedingly, and I’m glad he’s come 
home to live. We must not let him get 
lonely, Rebie. We must have him over here 
often.” 

Bernard spoke calmly. An engaged young 
woman, secure in her own position, feels that 
she has a margin wherein to plan unlimited 
hospitality to unattached creatures of the 
opposite sex, safe from comment or emotion. 
Rebie’s acquiescence, at first, w T as silent ; but 
as they walked back to the house she sug- 
gested that they should have an impromptu 
gathering of the neighbors one evening dur- 
ing the coming week, in honor of the wan- 
derer’s return. Bernard adopted the sugges- 
tion with enthusiasm and the pair fell, ani- 
matedly, to discussing ways and means. 

“That’s right, little women,” Colonel Ken- 
nedy observed approvingly. “Give him a 
good send-off, and he’ll manage the rest for 


BROADOAKS. 


33 


himself. He ’ll be a popular man in the neigh- 
borhood, as his father was before him. Geoff 
is a cleverer man than ever his father was, I 
should judge, although Basil Bruce was no 
fool, either. I met John Kennedy, this morn- 
ing, and he told me Geoff had contrived to 
lift that outrageous mortgage Basil left on 
the estate, and is forehanded in the matter of 
an income besides. John knows, for he ’s been 
the lad’s agent during his absence. He’s got 
pluck, that young fellow — pluck and energy. 
He was a good soldier, too, in the old days. 
I’m glad he’s come home. The old state 
needs men of his caliber. We must get Tim 
into politics after a little.” 

The following day was Sunday, a balmy, 
exquisite May day, rich with an atmosphere 
of warmth and light, and with an earth vital 
with germinating impulses. The trees all 
garmented in living green held themselves 
proudly, as conscious of a promising start in 
the season’s work; and the breezes kissed and 
encouraged them, lifting the oak leaves to 
show the tender russet on the under-side, and 
playing sweet whispering symphonies amid 


34 


BROADOAKS. 


the tremulous twigs of the old aspens. The 
season was a trifle backward, so the walnut 
trees still showed yellowish tassels among 
their foliage ; but the glory of locust and lilac 
bloom was over. Around the porch old fash- 
ioned climbers hung — yellow jessamine, 
clematis, and Banksia and Multiflora roses. 
The place was brilliant with form and color, 
and the atmosphere redolent with sweetness, 
so that a sojourner in that favored spot 
might be satiated with enjoyment through 
all the senses. 

It was a perfect day, filled with sunshine, 
peace, and promise; filled with pleasant sights 
and goodly savors. A day on which to gaze 
abroad over the earth and the beauty and 
majesty thereof, acknowledging in the soul 
that life is good and set in a good place, and 
that the spirit shall have cause to rejoice as a 
strong man and mightily uplift itself each 
time the consciousness of conception and 
growth and fruition shall return with the 
gladness of the season of love and of roses. 

The nearest church was three miles away 
so the young ladies sometimes excused them- 


BROADOAKS. 


35 


selves from attendance at its services. 
Colonel Kennedy rarely missed going him- 
self, unless the weather were exceptional. 
He had old fashioned views anent the power 
for righteousness which religious organi- 
zations may prove in communities, and also 
in regard to the responsibility resting on the 
elders of a neighborhood to preserve an 
example. Sometimes one, or both, of his 
daughters would accompany him, some- 
times, as to-day, they would prefer to remain 
at home. He never forced their inclinations 
either way, being too sincere a follower of 
Christ not to have absorbed and assimilated 
somewhat of the tenderness and liberality of 
His teaching. With the colonel, as with his 
Divine Master, the verity counted for more 
than the appearance, and he held that even 
external acts of worship should be voluntary. 

Bernard was seated at the piano in the 
parlor chanting a grand old anthem. Clear 
and sweet the words rang out, “I know that 
my Redeemer liveth.’ , She had a fine voice, 
rich and powerful, and sacred music suited 
it. Bernard was more gifted in many ways 


36 


BROADOAKS. 


than was her sister — none more willing to 
admit it than Rebie herself. “Bernard is the 
majestic ship that glides over blue waves 
from far-away summer isles,” she would say, 
“and I’m the fiery little steam-tug that 
grapples her and tows her into harbor.” 

Sitting at her music with the sunshine 
filtering through the old red curtains and 
bathing neck, brow, and lovely chestnut hair 
with rosy light she looked a St. Cecelia, and 
the least stretch of imagination might have 
sufficed to depict cherubim and seraphim 
hovering in rapt devotion near her. Yet 
Bernard, when roused, was as merry and 
active as Rebie herself, and no one enjoyed a 
dance or frolic more. Rebie was wont to 
declare that her sister betrayed her spirit- 
uality most by neglecting her clothes; and 
there was truth in the accusation, for 
Bernard’s things would never look like those 
of other people. Her clothes had a dejected, 
left-to-themselves aspect that would have 
blighted a less beautiful woman. Rebie was 
different and always contrived to look fresh 


BROADOAKS. 


37 


and trim, making the most of such good 
looks as she possessed. 

She sat on the porch enjoying the sunshine 
and roses and dreamily listening to the 
music. Her soft spring dress was adorned 
with a cluster of pink Multiflora blossoms, 
and she had a book on her knee, into the 
pages of which she cast no glance. She was 
thinking of the element of interest which had 
been added to their lives by the return of 
Geoffrey Bruce. 

There was food for day-dreams in the 
music and the surroundings, but Rebie’s were 
broken into, ere well started, by the advent, 
from the kitchen regions, of a small, ragged 
negro boy with a comical countenance and a 
brimless hat. He was accompanied by a 
broad backed, bench-legged terrier with 
cropped ears and tail. He was the only hope 
(the boy, not the dog) of the Broadoaks 
cook, and an especial protege of the young 
ladies. 

“Miss Rebie — ” he began, with a twinkle 
in his eyes and the broadest of grins. 


38 


BROADOAKS. 


“Crum,” interrupted the young lady, 
“how often must I remind you of the dis- 
courtesy of addressing ladies with your head 
covered? Remove your chapeau and speak 
out your message', without unseemly cachin- 
nations.” 

The little darky clawed off his hat-crown 
with a chuckle. He was used to this gran- 
diloquent mode of address from his young 
ladies. They called it educational, but 
Crummie was shrewd enough to suspect that 
they were, in truth, amusing themselves at 
his expense. He “didn’t keer,” however, and 
was prone to imitate them, on occasion, 
behind their backs, for the delectation of his 
own associates. 

“Miss Rebie — ” he recommenced. 

“You said that before,” reproved Rebie. 
“Never make false starts, young man; it 
spoils the dramatic effect of oratory. As you 
are, doubtless, destined for the political arena 
or, perhaps, the church, you should be careful 
to acquire a pure style. Observe my caution 
and proceed.” 


BROADOAKS. 


39 


“Yes ’ill. Miss Rebie, ole A’nt Nancy, she 
say won’t you, please, marm, come down to 
her house d’recklv. Say she dun hear de angel 
o’ deLawd a-callin’ an’ a-callin’ in de watches 
o’ de night, and she p’intly do b’l’eve she 
gwine hab one fit. Say mis’ry so bad in her 
haid an’ de j’ints o’ her back. An ’ say, if you 
please, marm, fetch her one little drap o’ 
whisky in er boddle, an ’ some sugar an ’ cof- 
fee. An ’ if Miss Bernard got any cole meat, 
whar dun cook, she’d be mighty proud to 
hab a little mouf-full, lease she ain’t got no 
appetite to eat nothin’ whar she got.” 

The boy reeled off his message with glib- 
ness, lifting up his shoulders, and rolling his 
eyes to emphasize the various points. The 
old woman in question lived in a cabin on 
Colonel Kennedy’s land, and was, in a great 
measure, a pensioner on his bounty. She had 
been his nurse, and used that fact unsparingly 
to her own advantage. 

Bidding the boy remain where he was, to 
accompany her and carry the basket, Rebie 
passed through the house on her way to 
the store-room. She paused an instant 


40 


BROADOAKS. 


at the parlor door to inform her sister 
of her mission. Bernard nodded, being too 
well accustomed to reports of Aunt Nancy’s 
nocturnal summons to attach much impor- 
tance to repetitions of them. She simply 
called after Rebie information in regard to 
the whereabouts of the provisions required, 
and enjoined it upon her not to go alone. 

Aunt Nancy’s cabin was situated about 
half a mile from the house, and the path lead- 
ing to it passed through woods and beside a 
tiny stream, called in Southern vernacular a 
“branch.” It was a merry brooklet, and 
“babbled over stony ways in little sharps 
and trebles,” snaring sunbeams and playing 
a soft accompaniment to the rustle of the 
wind amid the branches overhead. Rebie 
walked on briskly, enjoying the exercise and 
listening to the boy’s gleeful whistle as he 
trotted behind her with the basket neatly 
balanced on his hat-crown. He held a stone 
ready in his hand for any game which might 
be started by the bench-legged terrier, and 
his bright black eyes roved hither and 
thither. The dog nosed about and wagged 




AND PLANKED HERSELF, WITH LUSTY BARKING, IN FRONT OF A GEN 
TLEMAN WHO WAS ADVANCING. — Page 41. 


BROADOAKS. 


41 


her stump of a tail with grave importance, 
pausing now and then to utter an excited 
bark and dig frantically for a second at the 
root of some bush or sapling, raising thereby 
fallacious hopes in the breast of her master. 

Presently, however, she dashed along the 
path with a great show of activity and 
planted herself, with lusty barking, right in 
front of a gentleman who was advancing 
toward them from the opposite direction. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Rebie’s brows came together, shadowing 
her eyes, as water is shadowed when clouds 
hang low and hurry before the wind. A 
hesitating, slightly dissatisfied expression 
straightened the curves of her mouth into set 
lines ; her step almost imperceptibly faltered, 
and an incipient gesture of withdrawal con- 
fessed the impulse that was in her to turn 
backward. 

Crummie drew nearer and called to his dog 
with obsequious eagerness. Whatever might 
be the feelings of the young lady in regard to 
the new comer those of her escort discovered 
themselves to be decidedly, almost servilely, 
friendly. 

The gentleman, his advance obstructed by 
the obstreperous canine, paused and looked 
quietly down at his assailant until the little 
beast, disarmed by his quiescence, gave over 
barking and came close, with more pacific 
intentions. As she planted her little front 

4U 


BROADOAKS. 


43 


paws against the gray-trowsered leg and 
lifted an inquisitive muzzle the man stooped, 
caught her by the back of the neck and 
tossed her into the bushes beside the path ; 
whence, after a moment of surprise and 
uncertainty, she extricated herself, to be 
loaded with contumely by her time-serving 
owner. 

The gentleman approached Rebie with 
words of greeting. He had removed his hat 
and the spring sunshine filtering through 
young leaves brightened the crisp waves of 
blond hair which rose nimbus-like from the 
forehead and swept from crown to nape in 
unparted masses. The mouth, sure index of 
the emotional nature, was thin-lipped and 
red as a woman’s, parting over narrow teeth 
set slightly apart, and shadowed by a mus- 
tache which caught sunny reflections and 
meshed them like spun gold ; the eyes were 
peculiar, large and full, but mottled in the 
iris like tortoise shell, or the summer plum- 
age of the ptarmigan. A handsome man at 
first sight, and even on closer inspection — a 
tall man, well set up on firm, straight legs, 


44 


BROADOAKS. 


deep chested, slim waisted and lean flanked. 

The hand-shake between the pair showed 
no lingering appreciation of the ceremony on 
the part of the lady. Rebie withdrew her 
fingers from the clasp of Mr. Stuart 
Redwood with unflattering promptitude. 
He stood in front of her, barring her path 
and after the exchange of greeting she made 
a movement sideways, leaving a space 
between them. 

“I was on my way to Broadoaks,” he 
explained, “on the chance of finding some- 
body at home. That old house over yonder / ’ 
giving his head a backward gesture in the 
direction whence he had come, “is terribly 
oppressive in its Sunday silence. The loneli- 
ness gets to be a palpable substance, close 
and impenetrable, like thick darkness. If I 
were an imaginative man I could conjure up 
ghostly footsteps and soft rustling of silken 
garments every time the wind stirs. I could 
even people the place with spiritual presences 
in a dead calm. A little of it goes a long 
way with a practical, gregarious fellow like 
me, and the grim eyes of those old portraits 


BROADOAKS. 


45 


in the parlor always produce the desire in me 
to change my base in less than half an hour.” 

Stuart Redwood was a mining engineer of 
some note in his own section and among his 
own people. He had been sent South the 
previous autumn by a New York syndicate 
to take charge of a mining venture in the 
mineral belt of Piedmont, Virginia. A 
talented man and a gentleman, Redwood 
had been well received by the people of the 
neighborhood, and had made himself, on the 
whole, fairly popular. He was domiciled in 
bachelor importance at one of the old 
Kennedy homesteads, whose owner, a 
lawyer living two-thirds of the year in 
Richmond, was glad enough to let the prem- 
ises, as they stood, to any responsible tenant. 
The place was very secluded and lonely, 
situated several miles from the river, in the 
dead backwoods, and sometimes Redwood 
found its solitude more than he could endure. 

Until the return of Geoffrey Bruce, whose 
plantation lay between, the family at 
Broadoaks had been his nearest neighbors, 
and during the winter it had come to pass 


46 


BROADOAKS. 


that a surface intimacy had been established 
between the Kennedys and the new comer. 
That it was only surface, despite the 
cordiality of the Southern manner, Redwood 
knew full well, and, differing from his new 
associates in many essentials and liking 
them with reservations, he was quite con- 
tent to be excluded from the arcana of their 
lives, even as he himself preserved sacred 
from them his own sanctuaries. In one 
instance only he girded at the invisible 
barrier, and that was where it separated 
him from Rebie Kennedy. 

From the first moment of their acquaint- 
ance the girl had powerfully attracted Red- 
wood. There was in her manner an aloofness 
and lack of spontaneity which baffled and 
piqued him. She was courteous, even 
friendly ; but she made him feel that the fences 
were up and that he stood outside of them. 
She made him feel, also, that the domain 
enclosed was fair to look upon, and would be 
fairer to possess. 

Redwood was a man whose combative 
and dominating instincts were strong. The 


BROADOAKS. 


47 


thing which opposed him was the thing 
which he would — figuratively — move heaven 
and earth to bend to his will. Debarred the 
freedom of this sweet nature, his determina- 
tion solidified to obtain it at any cost. 

Rebie looked at him, smiling. She had not 
cared to meet him, but since he was here the 
woman within her caused her to make her- 
self pleasant to him. In response to his 
inquiry as to whither she might be bound she 
explained to him the nature of her errand. 

“It’s a relief expedition,” she averred, 
“undertaken in behalf of my father’s old 
nurse. She is eighty -five, and rejoices in the 
possession of many and complex ailments. 
Just now her favorite complaint is fits, and 
she serves them on us at all hours of the day 
and night. We are expected to be terribly 
alarmed by the new development, and even 
father must quail before the peril of it, or 
Aunt Nancy’s feelings will be hurt. She sent 
word up to the house an hour ago that she 
felt a fit coming on, and wanted a lot of 
things to eat, and that Bernard or I must 


48 


BROADOAKS. 


come over to her cabin at once. She is a 
rather spoiled old woman.” 

“She must be,” Redwood assented; then 
demanded, with a change of voice, “Does she 
live in a neat looking cabin near Mr. Bruce’s 
line fence ? Because if she does, the fit is all 
gammon. She ’s got a prayer- meeting in full 
blast. All the men who work at the mine are 
there ; old Abtam is exhorting from the top of 
a herring keg, and the women are slapping 
their hands together and crying ‘Oh, Lordy ! ’ 
like the very dickens. I came by there just 
now.” 

Rebie turned reproachfully to her sable 
escort. 

“Why, Crummie,” she remonstrated, 
“what made you tell me that Aunt Nancj^ 
was sick and wanted these things? ” 

“So she did, Miss Rebie,” Crum stoutly 
asserted. “She took an’ sont ’Liza-Jane up 
to de house by light dis mornin’. ’Liza took 
an’ tole me whenst I was drivin’ up de cows 
to milkin’. Mammy, she say I shouldn’t tell 
y’all ’twell arter bre’kfus’, an’ I never. Den 


BROADOAKS. 


49 


I took ’n forgot it plumb ’twell I come an’ 
tole you.” 

“It’s no use my going on if they’ve got a 
prayer-meeting,” Rebie deliberated. “Aunt 
Nancy will have to defer her fit to a more 
convenient season. You must carry the 
things on to her, Crum, and say I ’m sorry 
she’s poorly and will come over to-morrow. 
Don’t leave the basket, whatever you do, or 
Mammy will murder you.” 

“Is that your Mammy’s boy ? ” questioned 
Redwood, his eye following the retreating 
form of the little negro. He was not inter- 
ested in his query, nor in the reply which it 
might evoke; but he wished to delay the 
homeward move and to keep her with him in 
the fair spring sunshine and the silence and 
suggestiveness of the budding woods. 

“No, indeed,” Rebie answered. “Mammy 
has no children except Bernard and me. She 
loves, scolds and rules us exactly as though 
we were hers in reality. Crummie belongs to 
our cook — a long, narrow black-snake sort of 
woman whom you have, probably, never 
seen. She never belonged to father. She 


50 


BROADOAKS. 


came to as when her old master died about a 
year after the war, and has lived with us ever 
since. The boy’s real name is Oliver Crom- 
well. I gave it to him. If he should come to 
the White House — and you know there is no 
limit for colored possibilities — it will be an 
advantage to him to have a name full of sub- 
versive suggestions. My inspiration of ten 
years ago may be prophetic. Who knows ? ” 

Redwood laughed. 

“That’s into me because of the colored 
franchise,” he declared. “I don’t wonder 
you people mind it. To use your own vernac- 
ular it is, most emphatically, putting the 
bottom rail on top. Your malicious forecast 
for your protege will never be verified, how- 
ever. The North would rebel more quickly, 
if possible, than the South from such a con- 
tingency. My residence down here, short as 
it is has been, has effected some modifica- 
tions.” 

“For instance? ” 

Her tone was interrogative and her man- 
ner betokened interest. Redwood was 
delighted. To secure her attention he would 


BROADOAKS. 


51 


have discussed with avidity the relative 
results, social aud political, likely to accrue 
from the enfranchisement of Barbary apes. 
She had turned for the homeward walk, and 
he turned with her, keeping by her side when 
the width of the path would permit. 

“It has de-niggerized me, for one thing,” he 
explained. “I used to believe in the fancy 
sketches of the down-trodden brother like a 
pocket Garrison. I held him to be the sum of 
all the big virtues incarnated in ebony. My 
mind was as full of African illusions as a 
swamp is full of mosquitoes. All I ’ve got to 
say now is, let those who think as I thought 
attempt to mine ore with complex machinery 
and negro labor and see what conclusions 
they will have reached by the end of six 
months. I wouldn’t give half a dozen white 
western miners for all the negroes in the 
South.” 

“They work very well under direction; and 
they don’t give trouble in a tenth of the 
ways common to more advanced laborers,” 
asserted Rebie, forced to the defensive, not by 
the consciousness that the depreciation was 


52 


BROADOAKS. 


undeserved, but rather because of the tender- 
ness in which conservative people are prone 
to hold accustomed things. 

“They have thews and sinews,” acknowl- 
edged Redwood, “but the majority of them 
have no ambition and precious little brains. 
Give a lot of white men the advantages you 
Southerners are constantly allowing your 
former slaves, and in ten years every bit of 
property among you would be in a fair way 
to change hands. Your salvation has been 
that the negroes are more helpless and devoid 
of business enterprise and methods than j^ou 
are yourselves.” 

“You do us injustice.” 

“No, I think not. I ’m stating what looks 
to me a self-evident fact.” 

“It’s an injustice the way you put it. You 
dislike Southern people and the prejudice 
colors your statement. Our antecedence and 
environment are, and always have been, 
totally different from yours and the same 
standards don’t apply. You should qualify 
your judgments . ’ ’ 


UROADOAKS. 


53 


Her tone was a trifle nettled and, involun- 
tarily, she quickened her step. 

“That’s just it!” retorted Redwood, net- 
tled in his turn. “You can’t dissociate feel- 
ing — emotion — from judgment, or even plain 
statement of fact. Because I said Southern 
negroes were stupid and unreliable, and 
Southern whites unbusiness like and helpless, 
you accuse me of injustice and prejudice. It 
isn’t fair ! I know that you Virginians come 
from swashbucklering younger sons and we 
New Englanders from religious fanatics. 
These facts have been administered to the 
public ad nauseam . For myself I don’t see, 
in point of discretion and respectability, a 
pin to chose between the antecedence of the 
two sections. That’s beside the mark, how- 
ever. What I want to defend myself from is 
your assertion that I dislike Southern people. 
I do not. I am indebted to them for much 
courtesy.” 

“Should not a sense of your obligation 
hold you back from criticism ? ” 

As the words left her lips she regretted 
them. To her own sense they appeared 


54 


BROADOAKS. 


ungenerous, and to indicate a desire to lay 
an embargo on freedom of speech. The man 
had meant no harm. His ways were not 
their ways — that was all. Whenever they 
talked together, no matter what might be 
the subject, she was conscious of unreason- 
able irritation, and of a longing to contra- 
dict and quarrel with him. 

Redwood’s brow contracted. He had been 
innocent of intent to offend, nor did he con- 
sider that his remarks had been of a nature 
to justify offense being taken. Tq his own 
thought, in all his talks with Rebie, he was 
particularly large-minded and considerate. 
He fancied, at times, that she was difficult 
with him on purpose, from coquetry, or sheer 
perverseness. A retort rose to his lips, but he 
checked it, and walked beside her silently. 
His eyes dilated and then contracted with 
some sudden emotion, and his mouth com- 
pressed itself under his tawny mustache. 

Rebie glanced about seeking a topic of con- 
versation. She felt uncomfortable, like a per- 
son who has betrayed temper for an inade- 
quate cause. She half suspected that the 


BROADOAKS. 


65 


retort which she had seen quivering on her 
companion’s lips had been withheld for the 
purpose of placing her at a disadvantage, 
and then rebuked herself for the ungenerous 
suspicion. 

As they neared the house she noticed a 
couple of horses fastened to the rack outside 
the yard, and another, a nervous, fretful black 
mare with a white star in her forehead, 
standing apart, her rein attached to the 
horse-shoe nailed to the trunk of the old pop- 
lar. On the porch were seated three gentle- 
men smoking — her father, her uncle Edward 
Kennedy and Geoffrey Bruce. 

Redwood’s glance followed the direction of 
hers. 

“ Who is the stranger ? ” he abruptly ques- 
tioned. 

Rebie responded graciously, willing to make 
amends, and added to the mention of Bruce’s 
name some eulogistic comments anent the 
impression he had made upon them all. 

“He isn’t a real stranger, you know. He 
belongs to our past as well as present. He 
was with my father and brothers in that sad 


56 


UROADOAKS. 


old time, and associations of every sort are 
woven thick around him. It is a great pleas- 
ure to have him among us again.” 

She spoke with animation, and a cordial 
sincerity of interest that jarred on the man 
at her side. Redwood’s expression changed 
and his look grew hard and repellent as he 
neared the porch. 


CHAPTER V. 


Wednesday of the following week, the day 
appointed by the young ladies of Broadoaks 
for the little entertainment to be given in 
honor of Geoffrey Bruce, dawned, and waned 
toward evening with much activity and mer- 
riment. The two girls flew about the house, 
arranging rooms for guests who must remain 
over night, and clearing the big old-fashioned 
parlor of superfluous furniture in readiness 
for the dancing. 

“Had n’t we better have the Kitchen broth- 
ers after all?” inquired Rebie, as the sisters 
repaired to the storeroom for the composi- 
tion of that last, eleventh-hour cake which, 
to rural housekeepers, always seems essential, 
no matter how bountiful may have been their 
previous provision. “I’m afraid if we don’t 
all the playing will fall on you.” 

“Never mind,” Bernard answered. “We 
can’t help ourselves. If we have one Kitchen 
to accompany the piano ’twill mortally 


58 


BROADOAKS. 


offend the other, and we can’t get them both 
because they are at feud again. Jerry knows 
that Luke’s wife turned the hogs into his 
garden last week because his hot-bed was 
‘mo’ forreder’ than hers. And no amount of 
rhetoric will convince Luke that Jerry didn’t 
knock off old Damson’s horn on purpose 
when he caught her ravaging his young 
melon vines. According to Tom Kennedy’s 
version of the affair, each man is quoting 
Paul’s comment on Alexander the copper- 
smith, and hoping that the Lord will reward 
the other ‘ according to his works.’ ” 

‘It’s horrid to have them under strained 
conditions,” Rebie admitted, busily restoring 
the equilibrium of a pair of scales by piling 
nails on the side which would not balance. 
“ They are no help at all when they are quar- 
reling.” 

“None whatever, ’’assented Bernard. “Sue 
Kennedy tried it last autumn. Tom 
arranged an armistice between them for that 
appearance only, and Sue says she never had 
such a wearing time in her life. They 
wouldn’t speak to each other, except 


BROADOAKS. 


59 


through a medium, and during the entire 
evening the musician’s corner was electric 
with flashing eye and hissing innuendo.” 

The men under discussion belonged to that 
stiff-necked, independent mountaineer class 
usually dubbed “poor whites.” They were 
very good musicians, — one a violinist of merit 
and the other a power with the banjo, — and 
generally accommodating about lending, or 
hiring, their talents for the enjoyment of the 
neighborhood. By long practice they had 
come to play dance music with such skill and 
spirit that the very first bar would cause the 
sanctified toes of quite settled church mem- 
bers to beat time upon the floor ; while to the 
heels of the unregenerate it would give wings. 
The only drawback to the community’s joy 
in the possession of the men was the extreme 
choler of their temper and their proneness to 
domestic schism, during which time neither 
money nor persuasion would prevail to 
restore harmony sufficient for the practice of 
their art. When the Kitchens were at feud it 
was well understood that the young people 


60 


BROADOAKS. 


of the neighborhood must pipe for them 
selves, or forbear to dance. 

Rebie broke the eggs carefully, draining off 
the translucent whites from the golden 
globule in the center and casting the latter 
into a great bowl of shaded blue china 
wherein rested a heap of sugar. As the deep 
tinted yolks nested themselves in the glitter- 
ing white mound the girl paused, spoon in 
hand, to note and admire the harmony of 
contrast, and her mind, led and influenced by 
the subtle suggestiveness of color, pictured to 
itself clumps of field-daisies lifting golden 
hearts to the bend of a summer sky, and nod- 
ding responsive to the greeting of each pass- 
ing breeze. 

Beyond her, as she sat at the low oak table, 
rising from floor to ceiling, were the shelves, 
rich with the accumulations of years of 
domesticity. Piles of old blue Canton china, 
imported in the days when voyages to the 
Orient were events of magnitude, and those 
who went down to the sea in ships were 
regarded with interest and an admiration 
akin to wonder ; cut glass, in rank and file of 


BROADOAKS. 


61 


bowls, dishes, and slender wine glasses whose 
glittering facets had reflected the soft light of 
wax candles at many a stately banquet in 
“ye olden times,” and whose musical ring 
had been evoked to announce fellowship in 
pledges to the eyes of beauty, or the glory of 
renown. To one side the family silver stood, 
kept burnished by loving hands and held in 
high regard from the fact that each piece 
betokened by-gone bridal joy, or wedded 
love, or the coming of little children. In 
the corners, away up next the ceiling, were 
the relics, broken things, past usefulness or 
beauty, yet preserved from the ash heap or 
the hillside by the tenderness of association, 
and given a niche in the woman’s sanctuary. 

On the lower shelves the present held sway 
in stores of jellies, preserves and pickles, which 
showed amber or crimson, where the sunlight 
struck on the glass jars, and rich mahogany 
color, or mottled, like dark agate, where the 
shelves were in shadow. The air of the place 
was made faintly fragrant with odors of 
thyme, sage, sweet marjoram and balsam 
when the breeze from the open window shook 


02 


BROADOAKS. 


the bundles of dried herbs pendant from nails 
in the corners. 

Rebie, in joyous mood, plunged her spoon 
into the eggs and sugar and vigorously 
stirred the whole into an aureate mass. A 
song bubbled from her lips in a rippling mur- 
mur, like water falling over rapids. And the 
tale it told was of a warrior bold who, for 
his lady’s sake, vowed to perform some true 
act of chivalry “’twixt dawn of day, and 
twilight’s sway” of all the time they should 
be separated, so that “deeds of gold, by min- 
strel told” should cause her heart to exult in 
the knowledge that for love’s dear sake, 
her knight did make his devoir after so grand 
a fashion. 

Bernard entering from the kitchen, cake 
mold in hand, put an end to the refrain and 
changed the current of the girl’s mood. 

“No,” she answered in response to a ques- 
tion, “it isn’t near ready yet. It’s hardly 
begun, in fact. You must help me. There’s 
lots of time yet. Everything is done except 
this.” 


BROADOAKS. 


63 


Bernard drew the dish containing the 
whites of the eggs toward her and reached 
out to a shelf for an egg- whip. 

“I had a note from Sue Kennedy just now,” 
she said, the warm blood mounting to her 
cheek. “Rolfe is coming home to-day. He 
got leave unexpectedly, and telegraphed Tom 
to send a horse over to the station. Sue 
thinks his plan is to take us by surprise, but 
Aunt Mary decided that we ought to know 
because of the company this evening.” 

“That was nice of Aunt Mary,” Rebie 
declared, approvingly. “Of course you’d 
rather know so that we can arrange for you 
to be together a few moments, at least, when 
he gets here. It’s nearly a year since he was 
last at home. I’m so glad for you.” She half 
rose and rested her cheek against her sister’s 
with a loving gesture. 

Rolfe Kennedy was Bernard’s fiance. He 
was her cousin and poor; but neither con- 
sanguinty nor lack of means had prevented 
the imprudent young couple from contracting 
an engagement. In the lonesome places emo- 
tion still takes precedence of calculations. 


64 


BROADOAKS. 


The evening closed in soft and warm; the 
sun bestowed a golden benison on the moun- 
tains and slowly withdrew himself, bearing 
the guerdon of light and heat to the denizens 
of the world beyond. The young ladies shook 
out and donned their dainty muslin robes, 
brightening them with garniture of honey- 
suckle and roses from the old garden. 

It had been especially enjoined on Geoffrey 
Bruce that he must present himself in season 
to assist in the reception of the guests, so 
that twilight had scarcely settled down 
before his black mare was in her place 
beneath the old poplar. It was to be his 
“ turning-out party,” Rebie had explained. 
She met him with a smile and fastened into 
his coat a rosebud which matched those amid 
the laces on her own bosom. She stood 
beside him, awaiting the other guests, and 
glancing at him from time to time with such 
frank friendliness in her happy eyes that 
Bruce, all unconsciously, began to yield to a 
subtle enchantment, and to dimly realize, 
as through a golden mist, the beauty and 


BROADOAKS. 


65 


completeness life may hold for men and 
women. 

The neighbors were glad to welcome him. 
Most of them recalled with pleasure the high- 
spirited, gentlemanly lad, and even had that 
not been the case he would still have been 
“Basil Bruce’s boy” — one of themselves, an 
outcome of their past, and, as such, sure of 
recognition. As it was every eye smiled on 
him, every hand met his with cordial pres- 
sure and he was made to feel that his 
place had been kept for him, that he had not 
been forgotten. And in half an hour old asso- 
ciations had so far renewed themselves that, 
to Bruce, those years of absence, so eventful 
and so long in the passing, appeared to roll 
together like a scroll that might be banded 
by the thumb and forefinger. 

Merrily sounded the music as Bernard’s 
white fingers flew over the keys, and merrily 
moved the feet of the dancers, keeping time 
with its gladsome flowing. All were in 
blithest spirits, eyes and hearts, as well as 
feet, responding to the challenge of the 
music; bowing, changing, winding in and 


66 


BKOADOAKS. 


out through the graceful convolutions of the 
pretty old cotillions. 

Mr. Edward Kennedy — called “Uncle Ned” 
by the entire connection without regard to 
degrees of kinship — stood with his elbow on 
the mantel and called out the figures in a 
jovial, “tally-ho” voice, beating time with 
his foot and making jokes with everybody. 
He was not in the least like his brother, 
Colonel Kennedy, being a tall, robust man, 
rising six feet; was much addicted to field 
sports and had been a notable dancer in his 
youth. 

“Well done, Geoff,” he approved, as Bruce, 
with Rebie on his arm, paused near him at 
the conclusion of a set. “Nobody would 
believe you had danced nothing but fan- 
dangoes for ten years. If your hand retains 
its cunning as well as your heels we 11 have 
good sport together.” 

“It was the terrifying consciousness of 
your presence, Mr. Kennedy,” Bruce replied, 
gaily. “Your eye was on me and I dared 
not blunder. My recollection is too vivid of 
the day when you boxed me, head over 


BROADOAKS. 


67 


heels, for always giving my partner the 
wrong hand.” 

“Served you right,” laughed Uncle Ned. 
“ But for that blow you might have been 
years in coming to a knowledge of the differ- 
ence between the right and wrong way of 
doing things. I’ll take you fishing in a day 
or so, and see if you bear my other instruc- 
tions in mind.” 

Rolfe Kennedy, who had stationed himself 
beside the piano, bent over and said a word 
to Bernard, who smiled up at him and 
changed the music on the rack. The soft 
swaying movement of a waltz filled the air 
with allurement and melody, and every man 
looked about for a partner, unwilling to lose 
an instant’s enjoyment. Redwood advanced 
and claimed Rebie, and Bruce turned to Sue 
Kennedy. 

But Sue had charitably engaged to pioneer 
a bashful young cousin, a scion of the 
numerous house of Kennedy, and loyally 
stood by her promise. She suggested to him 
to go and ask a Miss Courtnay, a gawky 
schoolgirl with eager eyes and a receding 


68 


BROADOAKS. 


chin, who was standing beside Colonel 
Kennedy and looking wistfully about her. 

“She’s a stranger here,” Sue explained, 
“ and very young and unfledged. Her people 
were good and kind to my sister, when her 
baby was ill, last summer at the Yellow 
Sulphur, and when Maud heard that she was 
coming to the neighborhood she wrote to us 
to look after her a little.” 

“Who is she staying with?” Bruce 
questioned. 

“The Talcotts. They are new people who 
have moved in since you left. They only 
come to the country for the summer. Their 
home is in Richmond. That’s Mary Talcott 
flirting with Tom over by the bookcase. 
She introduced that poor Courtnay girl to 
Uncle Julian and washed her hands of her. 
Please go and make yourself pleasant. She 
dances very well, I believe, and she looks so 
lonesome.” 

Bruce crossed the room at once, spoke to 
Colonel Kennedy and obtained the necessary 
introduction. Tom gave him a quizzical 
smile and slightly lifted his shoulders as 


BROADOAKS. 


69 


though to convey the intelligence that he 
knew that Bruce was under orders. The 
young lady’s eyes, however, brightened, and 
such a look of genuine pleasure flashed into 
her unformed face that the young man felt 
his good nature rewarded and slipped his 
arm around her waist with quite a show of 
alacrity. She danced with the grace and 
vigor of one with whom the exercise is a 
passion, and to whom it had still the charm 
of novelty. As they glided around the room 
Bruce noticed, with amusement, the rapt 
absorption of her face and, for the moment, 
sympathized with the enthusiasm which 
could lose sight of self and surroundings in 
the harmony of music and movement. 

But if to dance well is a good thing, to 
know when to stop is better, and Miss 
Courtnay, while she excelled in one, failed 
deplorably in the other branch of knowledge. 
One couple after another stopped and they 
went on ; a few brave spirits started afresh, 
whirled awhile, broke down and stopped 
again, and still they went on. Bruce’s 
expression gradually changed from the sym- 


70 


BROADOAKS. 


pathetic contentment of a good waltzer, well 
matched, to a look of surprise, broadening to 
amazement, quickly succeeded by rage, a 
desire to laugh, despair, and finally settled 
down to dogged endurance. The room 
stilled and every eye was fixed on the whirl- 
ing pair. How would it end ? 

“Ten to one on the worn an,” Tom Kennedy 
murmured to his father. “She’s sound in 
wind and limb, and has the staying power of 
a four- year-old thorough-bred. She told me 
she could break down any man alive, and, by 
Jove! I believe her. With a partner to her 
mind nothing short of an earthquake or a 
conflagration will stop her. Hadn’t some- 
body better yell ‘ fire ’ ? Geoff looks ready to 
drop.” 

“I don’t blame him! Why don’t he stop 
her ? She ’ll whirl him through the ages and 
past the crack of doom. The girl has no 
mercy.” 

“ She ’s good to go for an hour yet.” 

“An hour! Twenty years from now a 
gray-haired woman and a gray-haired man 
will be revolving still through space.” 


BROADOAKS. 


71 


“No, no. Bruce will drop dead, soon. No 
mortal man can stand it.” 

“Unless lie’s trained for a Dervish. If he 
survives this Bruce might set up in that line 
of business. He could make a fifty years spin 
with a little more practice.” 

“ Play faster, Bernard ! ” 

These, and similar comments were whis- 
pered about the room. Every face was filled 
with amusement which was intensified by the 
perfect unconsciousness of the young woman 
who was the occasion of the mirth. She was 
enjoying herself to the top of her bent, and 
the idea of consequences was far from her. 
Matters were getting desperate when Ber- 
nard, in an agony of suppressed laughter, fal- 
tered, struck a false note, and broke down 
altogether. Bruce, feeling that he had been 
made ridiculous, but determined not to admit 
it, still less to allow the girl who had victim- 
ized him to be made uncomfortable by a real- 
ization of her foolishness, conducted his part- 
ner to a seat, possessed himself of her fan, 
and feigned an interest he was far from feel- 
ing in her expressions of enjoyment. 


72 


BROADOAKS. 


Redwood, standing beside Rebie, laughed a 
trifle unpleasantly. 

“Your new friend evidently enjoys making 
himself conspicuous,” he said. 

* Rebie glanced up at him. 

“He knows how to behave to a woman,” 
she answered. “That girl is inexperienced 
and just at the age to be keenly mortified by 
the knowledge that she had made a spectacle 
of herself. She’d suffer agonies of shame, 
altogether disproportionate to the cause, if 
she found out we ’d been laughing, even good 
humoredly, at her. Geoffrey knows that and 
he ’s being nice to her to keep her from feeling 
badly after awhile. It ’s a kind thing to do.” 
A change darkened Redwood’s face. 

“He is playing his cards with consummate 
skill, I grant. Other men might take lessons 
from him with advantage — perhaps.” 

His tone was significant. 

‘ 1 What do you mean ? ’ ’ 

The girl’s manner was cold : she withdrew 
herself a little. 

“Nothing. Only I congratulate him on 
having secured a champion.” 


BROADOAKS. 


73 


“You are right. Other men might take les- 
sons from him to advantage — in courtesy.” 

She abruptly left him and crossed to the 
piano where she established herself, saying 
that Bernard must have a dance before sup- 
per. When Bruce, having resigned his young 
lady to Tom Kennedy’s care, brought a chair 
into the corner behind the instrument she 
welcomed him with a smile, and was sweet 
and gracious, bending an attentive ear to his 
eager discourse. 

And strangely enough, while she listened, 
the old song of knighthood which she had 
hummed to herself earlier in the day came 
back and crossed and re-crossed the dance 
music she was playing, causing her to blun- 
der and lose her place, until Bruce, seeing 
that things were going wrong, slipped his 
own hands onto the keyboard and played 
for her. 


CHAPTER VI. 


About a mile from the river, on that por- 
tion of the Broadoaks estate which lay next 
the farm of Geoffrey Bruce, stood an old 
stone church, disused for many years, but 
kept in some sort of repair through the care 
of Colonel Kennedy. The building ante-dated 
the Revolution, and had been constructed of 
the materials at hand, without regard to fit- 
ness or rules of ecclesiastical architecture. 
The walls were of stones, left in the shapes to 
which natural formation had brought them, 
and roughly bedded in coarse mortar, while 
the beams and rafters, for floor and rooftree, 
showed plainly the mark of the settlers’ axe. 
Even the ancient pews and hideous box 
pulpit spoke eloquently of primitive handi- 
work, and of the time when the advent of 
women in the up-country had necessitated 
the erection of a place of worship. 

Encircling the church, and banded by a 
rugged stone wall, lay the “God’s acre.” It 

74 


BROADOAKS. 


75 


had once been used as the parish burving- 
ground, for the instincts of the colonists had 
been for the continuance of customs brought 
from the mother country ; but as years went 
on, bringing the inevitable progression, the 
growth of diverse religious influences and the 
erection of other churches, the use of the old 
church-yard as a place of interment had nar- 
rowed down to a few families. And when the 
founding of a village, some miles away, and 
the building of a new church, of the same 
denomination, and more centrally located, 
caused the older edifice to be abandoned, it 
had come to be regarded as private property, 
and as having reverted to the family of Ken- 
nedy. 

Although within Colonel Kennedy’s recol- 
lection the use of the old church had been 
spasmodic and confined principally, if not 
entirely, to the solemnization of rites of bap- 
tism, marriage, or burial in the Kennedy fam- 
ily, his attachment and reverence for the place 
was as deep as was his love for his ancestral 
acres, or his regard for the memory of his 
parents. To him the building was hallowed 


70 


BROADOAKS. 


by the associations and traditions which had 
grown to it as insensibly and as beautifully 
as had grown the lichens on its woodwork, 
or the ivy and Virginia creeper which covered 
its old walls. In the knowledge that the 
earth around it was consecrated by contain- 
ing the material part of many generations of 
men and women whose hearts and brains, 
during the life of this world, had been quick- 
ened by kindred blood to that which pulsed 
in his own veins, lay an additional bond to a 
man who, like Colonel Kennedy, had been 
endowed with love and veneration for the 
past. 

It had come to be a habit with the old sol- 
dier, in his rides about the plantation, to turn 
aside and visit the lonely spot. He would sit 
motionless on his horse beside the wall, let- 
ting his eyes wander wistfully over the peace- 
ful scene, until they would come, filled with a 
piteous pain and loneliness, to rest at last 
on the mounds which covered the forms of his 
fair young wife and the two brave sons she 
had borne him. And memory would stir and 
conjure up pictures of what had been, and 


BROADOAKS. 


77 


time would pass unheeded until the good 
horse, grown weary of inaction, would move 
and stamp impatiently, as though to remind 
his rider that there was still comfort and 
cheer in this life. 

Of late the old church had had another 
visitor — Mr. Stuart Redwood. He would 
come at day-dawn, or when the shadows 
lengthened and the setting sun showed red 
through the tree stems and above the laurel 
brakes, like a bush-fire seen from afar. He 
would come always from one direction, 
carrying something carefully in his hand, and 
with his head bent forward and attention 
concentrated, like a hound when the scent 
grows faint, forcing him to run warily and 
with his nose to the ground. 

And always the man would pause at the 
same spot, the bit of turf outside the grave- 
yard wall where the horse’s hoofs had worn 
away the grass. There he would lean, look- 
ing into the enclosure with an expression of 
keen calculation, of speculative interest, and 
sometimes of impatience and anger. The 
place held for him neither associations nor 


78 


BROADOAKS. 


memories, and aroused in his breast no 
tenderness, no regret. He would gaze on it, 
observing its mounds, its stunted evergreens 
and straggling roses, its unswept paths and 
mossy old tombstones, inclined this way and 
that as the settling of the earth had directed, 
with the look in his eyes with which a man 
will regard an object which is hateful to him. 

The place possessed a strange fascination 
for him, drew him as by a spell he was 
powerless to resist. He had risen from his 
bed now, an hour before sunrise, and walked 
over to it in the raw uncertain light of the 
spring dawn. 

It was chill, and there was a heavy fog 
that was almost a line drizzle, and in the 
obscurity objects assumed unreal propor- 
tions and distances grew indefinite. No wind 
stirred, and every bush and twig and blade 
of grass was beaded with moisture. From 
the young leaves overhead the heavy drops 
fell slowly, with a soft noise where rocks, or 
the hard, bare earth received it. Redwood 
parted the bushes with his hands, pressing 
straight forward, *as the crow flies, and 


BROADOAKS. 


79 


regardless of the fact that his clothing 
absorbed moisture on every side from con- 
tact with the undergrowth. When he 
reached the wall of the grave-yard he 
stopped, leaning his shoulder against it and 
waiting for more light. 

On every side the fog encompassed him, 
shutting out, for a time, the glory of the 
day’s increase. Then it softly lifted, borne 
upward by surface atmospheric currents, and 
thinning into gauzy wreaths which rested 
among the tree-tops until they were 
dissipated by a newly awakened breeze. As 
the scene changed gradually from the 
ethereal into the actual, and the face of 
nature showed itself in every-day expression, 
plus a matutinal freshness, Redwood 
removed his hat, letting the chill air play on 
his brow, and drawing it into his lungs with 
a healthy man’s relish. 

He walked around to the gate and entered 
the burying-ground, passing over, and among 
the graves until he reached one near the cen- 
ter of the enclosure, a few yards from the 
§outh wall of the church. The grave had 


80 


BROADOAKS. 


been walled about with brick and covered 
with a slab of marble, white once, but now 
discolored by exposure to the elements, and 
the growth of pale grayish lichens which 
clung to the stone and partially effaced the 
lettering which set forth that this slab was 
to be held sacred to the memory of George 
Aylett Kennedy, who had departed this life 
in the year of grace, 1799. 

It was the grave of Colonel Julian 
Kennedy’s grandfather. 

Redwood glanced about him. The ground, 
to one side of the grave, was slightly 
trampled, and the grass flattened, as though 
a weight had rested heavily upon it ; a track, 
faint, but distinctly marked, led straight 
from where he stood to the steps of the 
church, on one of which rested a tiny heap of 
earth ; the corners of the slab were discolored 
as though it had been grasped by hands 
begrimed with clay. Redwood caught up a 
handful of dead leaves, which had been 
lodged against a headstone near at hand, 
and rubbed away the stains. His face wore 
a dissatisfied expression, as of one who has 





> 



IF MISS REBIE WAS TO MARRY THAT GENT’M AN ’TWOULD BE A MIGHTY GOOD THING!” — Page 88. 


BROADOAKS. 


81 


relied on nature for aid, and had his trust 
betrayed. 

He moved the stone, lifting one end from 
the brick foundation and straightening it 
into place. Then he obliterated, as well as 
he was able, all traces of disturbance. 

While so engaged a sound came to him, and 
he bent his head, listening, with every nerve 
tense, as the wood-pecker listens, with his bill 
to the bark, for the stir of the insect within. 

Only the strpke of an axe away in the 
woods; some negro cutting firewood, most 
likely. Redwood’s attitude relaxed. He 
turned and entered the church, closing the 
door carefully behind him. 


0 


CHAPTER VIT. 


For a week or two after the dance at 
Broadoaks the usually quiet neighborhood 
was convulsed with gaiety. An epidemic of 
riding and dancing parties broke out; there 
were expeditions to places of real, or 
imagined interest, and every few days the 
young people would meet at one or another 
of the houses to spend a social evening. The 
weather favored frolicing, being balmy, and 
still not warm enough to be oppressive. 

Redwood, influenced by many motives, 
laid aside all reserve and entered into every- 
thing with a zest unusual to him. Under his 
quiet manner there was a strain of nervous 
excitement, and his sphere was vital with the 
impulse of sustained and eager effort. His 
quest of Rebie, gradually, became more pro- 
nounced so that people began to notice and 
put two and two together, with smiles and 
noddings of the head, and public interest pre- 
cipitated itself into factions because of 
82 


BROADOAKS. 


83 


another man who had entered the lists with 
avowed intent to battle for the prize. 

“There are breakers ahead for somebody,” 
Uncle Ned would remark to his son Tom. 
“It’s a long time since I ’ve seen one man look 
at another as Redwood looks at Geoff Bruce. 
When Bruce is with Rebie that fellow 
watches him with his head up and his eyes 
glittering, like a rattlesnake about to strike. 
There’s a lot of devil in Redwood, and the 
man who arouses it had better keep his wits 
well oiled and look about him uncommon 
sharp.” 

Tom would hoot at such suggestions. 
According to him the blood of the North 
flowed coldly, producing a temperament calm 
and calculating and an emotional nature 
incapable of cyclones. And for the present 
situation, it was inevitable that one man or 
the other must surrender, and the vanquished 
would, of course, have sense enough to do it 
decently. Aside from other motives, amour 
propre would dictate an orderly withdrawal. 
The conception of danger was ridiculous and 
melodramatic. So Tom would argue, lack- 


84 


BROADOAKS. 


in g that deep knowledge of certain Northern 
traits which bitter experience, amid carnage 
and death, had gained for the older man. 

But Uncle Ned, with larger insight, would 
maintain his position. 

“Don’t try to appear a greater fool than 
God made you, Tom,” he would observe, 
with parental frankness. “You simply do n’t 
know what you are talking about. Northern 
blood isn’t always boiling up like ours, but it 
holds heat longer. You’ll find that out if 
ever you try conclusions with the good folks 
north of the line as I tried ’em. That fellow 
Redwood has got a jaw built for holding on. 
He can’t part his hair, either. It grows in a 
brush, straight from the scalp, like the hair 
of an animal. I’m no physiologist, but I ’ve 
observed a few things as I ’ve gone along, 
and my experience shows that a man whose 
hair won’t part can’t be trusted. He’s apt 
to be tricky, or dangerous. If Rebie don’t 
sit light and ride carefully she ’ll get herself in 
trouble.” 

To which Tom would reply that doubtless 
Bruce would “cut the young cock’s comb” 


BROADOAKS. 


85 


for him. And there the subject would end, 
both men being fully aware that if Bruce 
should fail of performing the part assigned 
him it would be through no lack of effort. 

So prevalent was the interest excited that 
it penetrated even to the kitchen where the 
family retainers discussed the situation in 
council and passed judgment on the relative 
merits of the two suitors. There were fac- 
tions here as elsewhere, Mammy and Uncle 
Peyton being staunch to old traditions and 
the house of Bruce, while Jane — still regarded 
by the other two as an alien whose interest 
in family matters was superfluous, not to say 
intrusive — entertained a preference for the 
stranger, founded largely on the fact that one 
of her sons worked at the mine and was 
never kept waiting for his money. 

“He’s mighty rich, I reckon,” she medita- 
tively observed, one morning after she had 
been presented with a new dress and a won- 
derful bonnet purchased with money drawn 
from the mine. 

“Who dat?” 


86 


BROADOAKS. 


Mammy knew perfectly ; but it pleased 
her to affect ignorance. To do so would, in 
her estimation, cheapen Jane’s importance in 
her connection with wealth and enterprise 
through her son’s employment, and might 
even lessen her satisfaction in the new dress. 
Mammy was shelling peas and continued her 
work with an air of absorption, digging her 
thumb-nail into the fat green pods and col- 
lecting the peas in her brown palm with an 
affectation of indifference to all answer to her 
query. 

“Mr. Redwood, of co’rse. My Wallis, he 
come home las’ night to fetch me dem things 
whar he bought for me, an’ was talkin’ ’bout 
it. He say de boss jus’ a-pourin’ out de 
money — sinkin’ another shaft, an’ diggin’ 
an’ gougin’ every which-er-way. Say a lot 
o’ new machines done come an’ dey’s fixin’ 
up some sort o’ contrivance to keep it from 
gittin’ rotted out so quick. Wallis say Mr. 
Redwood ’lows he jus’ gwine snatch de gold 
pres’ny. Say look like to him, money ain’t 
no mo’ to de boss den so much dirt.” 


BROADOAKS. 87 

“It can’t be his’n, den,” Mammy astutely 
observed. “Folks look at deir own money 
more’n once befo’ dey git shet o’ it so fas’. 
An’ dar ain’t no handier way in de world to 
git shet o’ it den by hingin’ it off de p’int o’ 
a pick-axe. Dem dollars he draps in dat hole 
gwine to stay dar. Dat mine been worked 
befo’, an’ dem whar done it had to set down 
an’ cry. De truck whar down in dat hole is 
so tarrifyin’ to git hold of dat it’s money in 
folks’ pocket to let it alone. I been seed dat 
thing tried. Dese here folks gwine to quit 
pres’ny an’ blow on dar fingers.” 

But J ane’s mining interest was without hori- 
zon. So long as a portion of the coin emptied 
into that which Mammy scornfully desig- 
nated as a “hole in de groun’” found lodg- 
ment in her son’s pocket she was content to 
regard the mine and all pertaining to it with 
enthusiasm. Ultimate results were no con- 
cern of Jane’s. She took a fresh iron from the 
fire, tested its heat in the usual manner, 
wiped it on her apron, and, in her next 
remark, diverged a little. 


88 


BROADOAKS. 


“Ef Miss Rebiewas to marry dat gent’mon 
’twould be a mighty good thing.” 

“How come ’twould? ” 

“He’s got a sight o’ money. An’ he’s a 
mighty good lookin’ man.” 

“Dat ain’t nothin’. Don’t nobody know 
nothin’ ’tall ’bout him, nor who his folks 
was, nor whether he ever had any. Miss 
Rebie’s folks been quality ever sence Virginny 
was a settlement. Mos’ any ’scription of 
people kin have money. Befo’ de war a heap 
o’ nigger-traders had abundance o’ money; 
but dat didn’t make ’em nothin’ ’cept nig- 
ger-traders.” 

Mammy’s tone was aggressive. She was 
putting her finger on a sore spot, and she 
knew it. Jane’s former owner had amassed 
a considerable fortune in the inter-state slave 
trade, and had been a prey to fruitless social 
aspirations. Jane’s freedom was not of suffi- 
ciently long standing to dissociate, even in 
her own mind, her past from her present. 
She winced under the reflected discredit and 
cast about for something unpleasant where- 
with to prick her enemy in turn. 


UROADOAKS. 


89 


“Thar ain’t no surety thet ary one o’ deni 
young gent’men come arter Miss Rebie,” she 
remarked, knowing Mammy’s weakness for 
her youngest nursling. “Miss Bernard heap 
de prettiest.” 

“Dey ain’t arter her,” Mammy responded, 
with the placidity of full enlightenment. 
“You dunno nothin’ ’bout it. Miss Bernard 
gwi’ marry her cousin, Rolfe Kennedy. 
Everybody knows dat! Dey been sweet- 
hearts ever sence dey was knee high to a hop- 
per-grass.” 

Crummie, who had come in with a basket 
of new potatoes, cut into the conversation. 
He had a gift for narration and delighted in 
its exercise. 

“I know somethin’,” he announced. “Mr. 
Bruce, he thinks a sight o’ Miss Rebie, he do. 
Dis how come I know.” He settled himself 
on the wood-box and crossed one bare foot 
over the other. “Dat evenin’ las’ week when 
Un’k Peyton took’n sont me over to Mars 
Ned’s arter de brier-blade I kyared ole Boler 
wid me bekase de tarrier was ’bleeged to 
stay home wid her puppies. Well, whenst 


BROADOAKS. 


$0 

we was comm’ back an’ bad struck dat little 
stretch o’ woods jus’ dis side of de big gate I 
seed Miss Rebie an’ Mr. Bruce come ridin’ 
’long de road, sorter slow. Dey didn’t see 
me bekase I was behint de bushes. An’ de 
horses was walkin’ same as a fune’al.” 

He paused to throw some chips on the fire 
in obedience to a sign from his mother, and 
then proceeded with his story. 

“ Whenst dey got right against us ole Boler, 
he jumped up a rabbit side de road an’ took 
out arter her. Ole rabbit, she turned, an’ I 
run to head her a-hollerin’ to Boler an’ 
sickin’ him on. Den dat fool colt Miss Rebie 
was ridin’ got skeered at de fuss an’ r’ared 
an’ pitched an’ started to run away. Mr. 
Bruce all but dashed hissef off’n his own 
horse grabbin’ de colt’s bridle. Dem horses 
jus’ hippity-hopped ’bout in de road, I tell 
you, an’ Mr. Bruce, he hilt on to bof of ’em 
same as a jar-fly to a Juny-bug. His face 
was white as dem clo’se on de ironin’ boa’d, 
an’ his eyes glimmered like a lightwood knot 
a-fire; but he talk to de colt jus’ as easy. 
Miss Rebie wa’rn’t skeered none, hardly, an’ 


BROADOAKS. 


91 


in a minute she say ‘I can manage him,’ an’ 
guthered up de bridle. Den Mr. Bruce 
whirled roun’ on me, he did, an jus’ ’bused 
me ! He ’lowed he ’d a good mind to beat me 
half to death. Den Miss Rebie put in an’ sed 
he shouldn’t totch me. Say she knowed I 
never went to sheer de horses — did I? An’ I 
’spond back inco’se I never, kase I wouldn’t 
hu’t her for nothin’; an’ how ’twa’n’t me 
nohow, ’twas dat ole rabbit. Den Mr. Bruce 
say, mighty severe, dat if Miss Rebie had got 
hu’t he ’d er broke my nake. He would, too. 
I seed it in his eye.” 

Crum had been allowed to tell his story 
without interruption, but at its conclusion 
Mammy subjected him to considerable 
verbal ill-treatment, affirming that if Mr. 
Bruce had “wore him out agin de groun’ ” it 
would have been no more than he deserved 
for “jumpin’ up rabbits under dat skittish 
colt’s nose when one de chil’un was ’pon top 
of him.” Even Jane was moved to remon- 
strance which took the shape of a severe cuff 
on the side of Crum’s wooly head, and the 


92 


BROADOARS. 


order to go straight to the wood-pile and cut 
a turn of wood for the dinner fire. 

Feeling misunderstood and unappreciated 
Crummie withdrew, pausing, however, on 
the doorstep to mutter in an undertone, but 
quite audibly, that he “wa’rn’t never gwine 
tell ’em nothin’ no more. Not ’bout de 
ha’rnt whar. Jerry Kitchen seed t’other night 
risin’ up out’n Mars Julian’s gran’daddy’s 
grave, nor nothin' 

Having launched which shaft he proceeded 
to the wood-pile where he further soothed 
his outraged feelings by a series of hoots and 
howls, to the accompaniment of his axe, and 
persevered in the same until Colonel Kennedy 
opened the library window and sharply 
ordered him to “stop that infernal noise.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Rebie’s position in regard to the two men, 
as yet, defied analysis. The weeks, as they 
passed, were filled for her with an under- 
current of excitement. Subtly, insidiously, 
emotional forces were at work, effecting 
changes in her life, almost imperceptible at 
first, but growing in significance and prom- 
ising to subvert, at no distant day, the exist- 
ing order of things. It was as though 
imprisoned water, permeating the soil deep 
down below the surface, in obedience to its 
laws of being, should slowly concentrate 
and work upward and outward, seeking the 
appointed place wherefrom to break into the 
light and sunshine. 

During the days passed in intimate asso- 
ciation with one or other of the two men her 
feelings toward them underwent many 
changes, and finally came to be a puzzle to 
herself. The long rides, the moonlight 
promenades, between dances, the numberless 


94 


BROADOAKS. 


conditions conducive to furtherance of 
acquaintance afforded by the cordial inter- 
course of country life had given Rebie excep- 
tional opportunities for insight and com- 
parison. 

To Geoffrey Bruce her friendship had gone 
out at once, and fuller knowledge of his char- 
acter only deepened and amplified her liking 
for him. As yet it was only liking ; but of a 
sort so satisfactory that Rebie was content 
to entertain it without undue inquiry as to 
whether it might be simply a friendly visitant 
or in truth the angel who would bring bless- 
ing to her household. The manliness, the 
honest strength and thoroughness of his 
nature, filled her with the same content and 
confidence which the steadfastness and truth 
of her native hills inspired. On him weak 
things might lean in the surety that he would 
never fail them ; to him strong things would 
turn, as the eagle to the rock whereon is 
built the eyrie. Within the circle of his sphere 
Rebie, unconsciously, felt the attraction gen- 
erated by a conjunction of noble forces ; but 
had she been called upon to define her feelings 


BROADOAKS. 


95 


it is probable sbe would simply have said 
that he “ rested’ ’ her. 

With Redwood the reverse of the picture 
would be in accordance with the facts. If 
Bruce rested her, Redwood’s influence 
aroused doubts, fears, longings for she knew 
not what; filled her with disquietude, and 
with aspirations which were more intel- 
lectual than emotional. His society had for 
her a malign fascination such as Indian 
hemp is said to possess for its votaries. Her 
nature protested against his nature, and her 
points of view were almost always opposed 
to his. He could not assume the simplest, 
most matter-of-fact position without arous- 
ing within her a desire to contravert the 
truth of his statements, even though they 
should bear truth on the face of them. In 
some occult way she seemed to feel that there 
was within him a force which could consume 
without warning. In some moods she hated 
him, and well-nigh exulted in the conscious- 
ness that it was so ; in other moods she was 
sensible of a weird attraction, like that 
which, with certain imaginations, may be 


96 


BROADOAKS. 


developed through prolonged contemplation 
of a burned and blackened forest under a 
somber sky. 

The attraction and repulsion being so 
nearly equal, Rebie would in all probability, 
have held to her own orbit uninfluenced by 
Redwood’s proximity had not the return of 
Geoffrey Bruce deranged the established order 
and brought about new relations. 

Tom Kennedy— a great promoter of expedi- 
tions, anything that involved being out of 
doors and on horseback finding favor in his 
eyes — one day suggested that, while the 
weather was propitious, they should make a 
party to visit “Old Sachem,” a mountain 
some ten miles distant, from which the pros- 
pect was said to be unusually fine. 

“You’ve never been there, Redwood, and 
you should n’t leave Virginia without seeing 
that view. It is claimed that, with the 
atmosphere in the right state, the range of 
vision extends over nine counties. Since the 
war, the country has grown up tremen- 
dously, and the plantations appear to have 
shrunk to islands in a vast sea of foliage ; but 


BROADOAKS. 


97 


the effect is very beautiful, taken from the 
artistic standpoint. The leaves are still 
young enough, moreover, to give variety, 
and contrast with the somberness of the 
pines and the shading of the open lands. On 
a clear day one gets the deep azure and the 
purple of the Blue Ridge, piled, range on 
range, in the distance, and the sheen of the 
rivers — three of them — bending in loops and 
curves, like silver ribbons on a green gar- 
ment.” 

Tom paused for breath, and Bruce softly 
applauded. 

“Hold on! w Tom said. “I haven’t done 
yet. I was only waiting for my second wind. 
There ’s more to tell. It is vouched for a fact 
that with the eye of faith, a lively imagina- 
tion, and a good glass, one may see Char- 
lottesville and distinguish the university and 
Monticello, which give an opportunity for 
reminiscent thrills about the constitution and 
old Jefferson, and for thanking God that one 
has a cut-throat mortgage on patriotism and 
the fellows who taught it. Now, if you don’t 
all yearn to go with an exceeding great 


98 


BROADOAKS. 


yearning, the ‘lyre has been struck in vain.’ ” 

“That’s just it,” Rebie saucily demurred. 
“You are such a mendacious fellow, Tom, and 
such a perfect jack-my-lantern for leading the 
unwary into swamps, that one can’t help dis- 
trusting you. I’ve been tempted to my 
undoing so often by your specious represen- 
tations that, if outside testimony had not 
established the truth of your account I’d 
caution the others against following your 
lead.” 

“You went once yourself,” Tom gleefully 
suggested. 

“I did.” 

There was an uncompromising dryness 
about the assent. 

Bruce smiled. “Your tone suggests the 
inference that disappointment of some sort 
was your portion. What was the trouble ? 
Didn’t the view pan out well? ” 

“ I’m not in a position to state, for I didn’t 
see it,” replied Rebie, while Tom laughed. 
“Some years ago Bernard, Sue and I were 
insane enough to arrange an expedition to 
Qld Sachem with Rolfe, a friend from 


BROADOAKS. 


99 


Baltimore who was visiting ns, and this 
abominable Tom. It was cloudy when we 
started, and father advised us against going; 
but we were wild for the ride and Tom 
vowed it wasn’t going to rain. When we 
reached the foot of the mountain it was 
drizzling a little, and we wanted to stop at a 
cabin close by and wait until the shower 
passed ; but those perjured men insisted that 
it would clear, or if it should n’t that the best 
plan would be to ride on and get above the 
cloud. Like foolish sheep we followed our 
leader and the more we kept on the worse it 
became. The horses slipped and stumbled, 
the clouds grew heavier and enfolded us like 
a drenched blanket. We had been promised 
that we should get above them but we never 
did. They were piled in layers and when we 
got through one we rode into another even 
denser. When we reached the summit we 
found them in possession, mustered thick, 
and held in ranks by a wind that whistled 
like rifle bullets and cut like sabres; and 
presently it began to rain in a perfect deluge. 
Not one blessed thing could we see except the 


100 


BROADOAKS. 


torrent that dashed in our faces and soaked 
our garments. We turned and rode home 
without a word, and for months after the 
very thought of Old Sachem was enough to 
set us sneezing.” 

The dismal picture provoked a laugh, but, 
in spite of it, the expedition was voted for 
and arranged for the following Thursday. 
Bruce turned to ask Rebie to go with him, 
and was in time to catch Redwood’s mur- 
mur and her reply. His disappointment was 
so manifest that Tom indulged in a mis- 
chievous chuckle. 

“It was a case of ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be 
quick!’ and Redwood beat you,” quoth he. 
“No, it’s no use asking Bernard. Rolfe will 
insult you if you so much as think of her. 
Sue’s your best chance.” 

On the appointed morning when the party 
assembled at Broadoaks it was found that it 
had dwindled to eight persons, — four couples, 
— which Tom asserted was a comfortable 
number and far better than a mob. He was 
escorting a Miss Seldon, a shy, graceful 
woman with a refined face and gentle mam 


BROADOAKS. 


101 


ner, whose society, in the eternal fitness of 
things, noisy, rollicking Tom particularly 
affected. It was rumored that he intended 
offering his honest heart and big brown hand 
for the young lady’s acceptance, and that 
might have been his ulterior motive in pro- 
posing the expedition, since a long, wood- 
land ride gives marvelous opportunity. 

The ride would be lengthy so it had been 
arranged that they should spend the day on 
the mountain; and, as no man would endure 
the thought of carrying a basket, Crummie 
was added to the cavalcade as luncheon 
bearer. The way was not specially attract- 
ive, the road leading, for the most part, 
through dense woods, but it was shady and 
pleasant, and the party, kept well together 
by feminine strategy, chatted and laughed as 
they galloped along. At the wayside spring 
there was the usual difficulty about a gourd, 
so they made no halt, the women spurning 
Tom’s obliging offer of his hands, or his hat, 
for a drinking cup. 

The ascent was long and steep, a mere 
bridle-path which zig-zagged roughly up the 


102 


BROADOARS. 


mountain, thickly set on eitlier hand with 
bushes and made rugged by juts and spurs of 
rock, over and around which the horses care- 
fully picked their way. Every now and 
again, as they steadily ascended, vistas of 
surpassing loveliness would present them- 
selves, wooing them to linger. But Tom 
would permit no tarrying by the way ; they 
must save themselves for the burst which 
awaited them at the summit. 

And so they gaily rode on ward and upward 
until at length, on the crest of the mountain, 
they emerged in a clearing of about an acre 
in the center of which stood the remains of a 
signal station, abandoned some years previ- 
ously and allowed to fall into ruins. Around 
the clearing, hemming it in, stood a dense cir- 
cle of trees and undergrowth, with here and 
there an opening. Everyone glanced eagerly 
about; disappointment settled darkly down 
on the faces of the women, while, Smiles of 
amusement furtively flitted across those of 
the men. 

Sue turned on her brother with indigna- 
tion. . 


BROADOAKS. 


103 


“Tom Kennedy !” she exclaimed, “I do 
believe you are the most unprincipled trick- 
ster the century has produced ! Here we 
deluded wretches have followed you miles 
and miles, over ravines and up mountain- 
sides, risking our immortal souls and perish- 
able bodies — /or what ? To be landed in the 
middle of a forest to look at a view! For all 
we are likely to see we might be at the bot- 
tom of a well. You ought to be court-mar- 
tialed and shot ! ” 

Rebie burst into irrepressible laughter. 

“Didn’t I warn you against trusting 
Tom? ” she queried. 

“Where is the view?” inquired Redwood, 
glancing around with a painstaking air. “I 
don’t see any.” 

“Nor do we,” observed Bernard drily, while 
Rolfe and Bruce regarded each other with 
preternatural gravity for a second and then 
joined Tom in a shout of laughter. 

“Don’t be cross, girls,” he entreated. “We 
might have brought axes to fell the timber, 
but I didn’t think of it. It’s not so bad as it 
looks. Brace up a bit, and come with me.” 


104 


BROADOAKS. 


They followed him to the other side of the 
clearing where an opening among the trees 
gave them a superb vista. Then, dismount- 
ing, they suffered themselves to be lifted and 
dragged up to the small platform near the 
top of the old station and stood there, awed 
and speechless, filled with the delight of the 
eyes. And with the majesty of that match- 
less panorama of mountains and valleys, 
wooded hills and flowing waters impressing 
itself upon heart and brain there came to 
them “as through a glass, darkly,” a realiza- 
tion of the significance of it, of the vastness 
of space, of the wonder of silence and of the 
infinite perfection of the divine thought which 
finds expression in the beauty of the visible 
universe. Silently they stood, until Bernard, 
moved by the unseen influences, lifted her 
exquisite voice and chanted for them a psalm 
of praise and recognition. And, away in the 
southwest, like incense from an unseen altar, 
a cloud of smoke arose and hung in pale gray 
waves above the forest. 

After luncheon, the party assembled on a 
little knoll in front of the most extensive 


BROADOAKS. 


105 


opening, the girls making themselves com- 
fortable on a carpet formed of saddle- 
blankets, while the men reposed on mother- 
earth and smoked, and talked in broken 
snatches, with long intervals given to contem- 
plation of the picture spread out before them 
and to enjoyment of dolce far niente. 

Suddenly a cloud, adrift on atmospheric 
currents, was borne upward like a wave and 
intercepted the sun’s rays so that, for an 
instant, the earth lay in shadow. 

“It is like the wing of death hovering over 
the land and chilling its life and beauty,” 
May Seldon fancifully observed. 

The cloud passed, and the landscape grew 
from obscurity into light; more beautiful 
from contrast. 

“Behold the resurrection, ” murmured Ber- 
nard, “for after darkness comes the light, 
after death, life, and so is the endless rhythm 
carried forward. Why is it that scenes like 
this invariably suggest music? It is as 
though the expectant soul were strained to 
catch the echo of divine harmony filling the 
vibrant spaces on the hither side of silence. 


106 


BROADOAKS. 


To follow its pulsations, now full, now faint, 
like the tide of human life, yet ever preserving 
its unity, solemn and sacred through all, 
stirred with tender minor cadences, lowered 
or uplifted by grief or passion, and moving 
surely onward to the outburst at the end.” 

“There is music in all things, if men had 
ears,” May quoted. “And in saying that 
Byron but puts into words once more the 
thought that underlies the centuries. Every 
thinker recognizes that the intangible is as 
potent as the actual. That harmony must 
stir the soul and sound in the spiritual ears 
before it can be given material expression. 
It is but a repetition of the incarnation, the 
divine omnipotence.” 

“At last a soft and solemn breathing sound, 

Rose like a stream of rich distilled perfumes, 

And stole upon the air; that even silence 
Was took ere she was ’ware, and wished she 
might — 

Deny her nature, and be never more, 

Still, to be so displaced. I was all ear, 

And took in strains that might create a soul 
Under the ribs of death — ” 


BROADOAKS. 


107 


quoted Rolfe. “It was fanciful of old Milton, 
was it not? That idea of music creating a 
soul— fanciful, but exquisite. How all beauti- 
ful things link themselves together in mysteri- 
ous sequence; a grand view, a strain of 
music, the lines of a poem, a soul. It is 
always so. More differentiation of the old 
theme, I suppose.” He turned his face 
toward Bernard and smiled. 

And so the talk drifted, impersonal, often- 
times intangible, dealing with the facts and 
theories of thought and emotion with the 
subtle grace, the surface brilliancy which is a 
characteristic of the age. Yet showing 
through all, as the sun shows through irides- 
cent mist, an innate reverence for, and sym- 
pathetic appreciation of the ideal, the spirit- 
ual which in every manifestation of life tran- 
scends and permeates the material. 

Redwood leaned on his elbow and listened, 
taking no part in the conversation, but 
drawing his own conclusions. Of late he had 
come to take stock of the Kennedys with 
critical acumen ; to test their thoughts, their 
emotional tendencies, and to speculate as to 


108 


BROADOAKS. 


the motives likely to influence their actions. 
To his more practical intelligence and larger 
material perceptions they seemed like a sur- 
vival. He was constantly running up 
against barriers with them, limitations, 
ignorances, traditions erected into immutable 
laws, and dispositions to allow emotion 
rather than reason to have the casting vote. 
Had he been called upon to sum up the Ken- 
nedy family, from personal observation, he 
would unhesitatingly have pronounced them 
“a colony to themselves, with more brains 
and less practical use of them than any set 
of people likely to be met with, even in the 
South.” 

As it happened, the characteristics of the 
Kennedys were destined to effect Redwood’s 
own life in many ways, a fact of which he 
was daily becoming more convinced. Associ- 
ation with them had quickened his nature 
and aroused within him conflicting emotions, 
admiration, interest, intolerance, and, lat- 
terly, had developed a desire to draw near 
to them, counter-balanced by an equally 
strong desire to brush them out of his path. 


BROADOAKS. 


109 


The desultory talk around him entered his 
ears, but penetrated no further than the bar- 
bican of his mind, the citadel of which was 
held by thoughts more deeply personal. His 
brow contracted and his eyes appeared to 
darken and lose their tortoise shell mottling 
as the pupil dilated. His attitude bespoke 
such absolute quiescence that Tom reached 
over and gave him a good-humored shove, 
bidding him at the same time, to “whistle his 
wits to heel. ,, 

Redwood roused himself at once, and put 
some question relative to the country there- 
abouts which led to a discussion, among the 
men, of soils and strata and formations, and 
finally of mineral deposits. Redwood grew 
alert, caught the reins of the conversation 
and headed it westward, for Bruce’s experi- 
ence among the mines of Nevada gave his 
opinions weight and value. His own infor- 
mation on matters connected with ores, and 
particularly with gold, appeared extensive, 
and he entered into the subject with a zest 
which betokened interest quickened by per- 
sonal motive and desire. 


110 


BROADOAKS. 


“Have you ever been out to my place?” 
lie inquired, when he had satisfied his thirst 
for information about the West. 

“What, the old ‘Lone Jack’ mine? Oh, 
yes; a hundred times. It belonged to my 
grandfather, once. All that tract of land 
did. He inherited it from his mother, who 
was a Kennedy. He lost it at draw-poker. 
The lawyers about the court house in those 
days were a convivial set, and loved a mint- 
julep and a game of cards better than was 
good for most of them. There are men who 
can play poker, and men who think they can 
play poker. My grandfather was one of the 
last named. There’s a big difference. There 
was a fellow named Rokesby on the circuit, 
then, who had been born and bred to the 
game, and he pretty well cleaned out the 
whole crowd.” 

“On the square, though,” observed Tom. 

“Certainly. The man was a gentleman. 
Only he always kept sober enough to know 
what he was about, and the others were 
frequently only sober enough to be respon- 
sible for what they bet, Rokesby bluffed on 


BROADOAKS. 


Ill 


a ‘ lone Jack’ liand one night and won three 
hundred acres of land and half a dozen 
negroes from old Geoff Bruce.” 

Redwgpd looked interested. “I don’t 
understand the game,” he said. “Is a ‘lone 
Jack ’ hand a strong one ? ” 

Bruce laughed. “Lord bless you no! It 
beats nothing , and that is all. My grand- 
father was bluffing, too, but he hadn’t the 
nerve to hold out. That’s where Rokesby 
showed science; he studied men as well as 
cards. And he knew most of the men he 
played with down to the ground.” 

“Was it known that there were indications 
of gold on that tract before the land changed 
hands ? ” Redwood questioned. 

“I fancy so. The negroes and poor whites 
panned gold and sold it long before old Geoff 
Bruce’s time. It has always been known 
that there was gold in this region, but 
nobody ever believed it to be in paying 
quantity, and it has never been proved to be. 
That mine was not opened until years after 
Rokesby won it, and it had changed hands 
once or twice in the interim, People didn’t 


112 


BROADOAKS. 


think much about mines in those days; the 
idea of wealth was associated with land and 
negroes. The first company that took the 
mine called it ‘Lone Jack/ for luck. But it 
never brought any. All ventures connected 
with it have resulted in loss and failure. If 
your company makes a hit there it will be 
the first.” 

Redwood felt nettled. Ever since he had 
assumed charge of the mine gloomy prog- 
nostications had confronted him. That he 
would “come out of the little end of the 
horn” had been freely predicted, and any 
temporary encouragement in the out-look 
was scouted as being ignis-fatuus hovering 
over a quagmire. Most of the gentlemen 
of the neighborhood had, at one time or 
another, fooled away money in the mine 
themselves, or their fathers had, so that it 
had acquired a bad name among them, and 
everything connected with it had come to be 
regarded with the reminiscent suspicion of 
those whose digits have suffered. For every 
dollar raised from that hole, five had to be 
expended, they said. Redwood, whose 


BROADOAKS. 


113 


intolerant and vigorous nature refused to be 
trammelled by precedent, felt the general 
attitude and resented it. The fact of a thing 
having existed in one shape in the past did 
not, to his thinking, establish a reason for its 
continuing to exist in the same shape in the 
future. If the mine had heretofore failed, he 
argued, there were nine chances to one that 
the failure had been due to mismanagement. 
He believed in the mine and thought he had 
grounds for belief, despite the popular ver- 
dict. His combativeness was aroused and 
he threw up his head and clinched the bit, 
determined to win the race or die in the 
effort. 

Like most strong-willed, dominating men 
Redwood could rarely make allowance. He 
could see that which he wanted and not 
much to the right or left of it; and his 
impulse was always to trample down 
opposition. Difference from his point of 
view, argued, with him, natural incapacity, 
or wilful misconception. 

He had no intention of wasting time and 
energy in defense of the mine’s prospects ; he 


114 


BROADOAKS. 


meant to annihilate public prejudice with the 
mine’s success. When he spoke again he 
shifted ground a little. 

“There’s a thing that strikes me as curious 
about you Virginians,” he said, “and that is 
the latitude you allow yourselves in the 
matter of values. If a man wants to 
straighten out his lines he gets on his horse 
and rides around to his neighbors and pro- 
poses to ‘swop’ enough land to effect his pur- 
pose. He puts what you call a ‘ horseback 
valuation ’ on the soil without much reference 
to what may be on it, and none at all to what 
may be under it, or to the rights of heirs. 
And the transaction is accepted and allowed 
to stand through generations without any 
legal form of transfer. At least such appears 
to have been the custom formerly. Is it so 
still?” 

There was a general dissent, and Rolfe 
explained that, since the war, much trouble 
and litigation had grown out of the old lax- 
ity, and that with the new generation, busi- 
ness methods in the South were slowly being 
'reconstructed. A man’s word had ceased to be 


BROADOAKS. 


115 


accepted as his bond; children were beginning 
to hold themselves exempt from obligations 
incurred by their fathers, and a tendency was 
developing to resolve things to the individual 
basis. For himself, he considered the — so- 
called — progress, decided retrogression, and a 
thing to be regretted. 

“ There was some transfer of the sort Red- 
wood describes between the Bruces and Ken- 
nedys in the old days, wasn’t there, Geoff? ” 
Tom questioned. 

“Yes,” replied Geoffrey. “That land the 
old church stands on was Bruce property 
once. We ran down in a wedge just there, 
right into the Kennedy estate, and there was 
some trading about to straighten out lines. 
It was a good while ago.” 

Redwood turned, as though moved by a 
sudden impulse, but on second thoughts set- 
tled back in his place and let the subject lapse. 
He had found out that which he wished to 
know. 

A shuffling and snapping of twigs down 
among the bushes, accompanied by a sound 
as of someone belaboring the earth, attracted 


116 


BROADOAKS. 


general attention. The men all sprang to 
their feet and hurried to the spot to find 
Crummie, much excited, hopping around in a 
circle and beating some object on the ground 
with a hickory sapling. 

“It one ole rattlesnake ! ” the boy explained. 
“I seed him qurled up here, sunnin’ hese’f, an’ 
I got me one pole an’ kilt him. He mighty 
dead ole varmint now ! ” 

Tom caught up a stick and lifted the snake, 
calling to the girls to come and look at it. It 
was a large one, as thick in the body as a 
child’s wrist and handsomely marked; there 
were eleven rattles, besides the button, and it 
hung long and limp across the stick, the dark 
blood torpidly oozing from its crushed head. 

The young ladies wondered, shuddered and 
exclaimed, as is customary on snake occa- 
sions, and straightway developed such a ten- 
dency to start and peer askance at every 
dead stick, and to change their position at 
every rustling among the leaves that Rolfe 
declared there was no comfort in being 
near them, and suggested that the horses 


fcROADOAKS. 


117 


should be saddled for the homeward ride, a 
move which was carried by acclamation. 

The order of progression was somewhat 
different from that of the morning. Tom and 
Rolfe contrived to separate the young women 
under their escort from the rest of the party 
and so secure opportunity for uninterrupted 
conversation. While, in spite of Redwood’s 
best endeavor, Rebie managed, without seem- 
ing intention, to keep within ear-shot of the 
other couple the entire way. And Redwood, 
baffled and provoked, had an inner conviction 
that Sue Kennedy, by occult, or rather femi- 
nine divination, comprehended the situation 
and quietly played into her cousin’s hand. 


CHAPTER IX. 


The morning after the expedition to Old 
Sachem, Mammy came into the room where 
the family sat at breakfast with the air of 
importance, vivified by dismal enjoyment, 
with which colored people love best to impart 
evil intelligence. 

“Mars Julian,” she announced, “’Liza-Jane 
in de kitchen, sar. She come up to tell you 
ole A’nt Nancy pow’ful bad off. Dey ’s ’feared 
she’s dyin’. She was tooken speechless ’bout 
day-break, an’ ain’t made n’ary motion sence, 
’cept whenst dey axed her mus’ dey fetch you 
an’ Mars Ned she opened her eyes an’ looked 
to’ards de door. Dey know’d den she was 
sensible, ef she could n’t talk. Patrick gone 
arter Mars Ned now.” 

Colonel Kennedy pushed away his plate 
and bent over for the crutches which lay on 
the floor beside his chair. The news did not 
surprise him, for his old nurse had been fail- 
ing for many months. He was only 
118 


con- 


IjROADOAKSs. 


lid 

scions of the regret which comes with all 
threatened severing of links with the past. 

“Is any one with her?” he questioned. 
“Besides the grandchildren, I mean. And 
has anyone had sense enough to go for the 
doctor? Where’s that girl? ” 

“She’s in de kitchen, sar — ’cepten she’s gone 
home. She was pow’ful flustrated. De 
neighbors was cornin’ in tol’able thick, ’Liza 
say, considerin’ de news ain’t fa’rly had time 
to cirkerlate. I’se gwine down myse’f soon 
as de brek’fus’ things is put away. No, sar, 
dey ain’t sont for no doctor. Niggers off to 
deirselves don’t projeck ’long o’ doctors 
much. ’T would n’t er done no good nohow. 
A’nt Nancy was struck for death las’ night. 
’Liza say dey could tell it time it come.” 

She spoke with the absolute conviction of 
ignorance and credulity. Colonel Kennedy 
made no comment. He was too accustomed 
to the fatuousness of negroes even to be 
made impatient by it. That they might be 
accounted rational beings capable of taking 
care of themselves in sickness or death never 
occurred to him. His experience had proved 


120 


BROADOARS. 


them very much the reverse. To his daugh- 
ters he gave a few directions and then quitted 
the room to despatch a messenger for a phy- 
sician, and to order his horse. 

“Wasn’t this last attack rather sudden, 
Mammy?” Bernard inquired. “We were 
over there a few days ago and Aunt Nancy 
seemed as well as usual. We made quite a 
visit, and she insisted on baking each of us a 
little ash-cake as she used to do when we 
were children. She wouldn’t let ’Liza or lit- 
tle Nancy wait on us at all — wanted to do 
everything herself. She talked a good deal of 
our grandmother, and of mother and the 
boys. Her mind seemed to be running on the 
past, and she told us stories of her own 
young days, and of poor old Uncle Nat.” 

“Lord, honey! Un’k Nat been dead forty 
ye’r! I war n’t no more’n a gal whenst 
Un’k Nat got drownded. ’Twarn’t no use 
makin’ ’miration over him. A’nt Nancy done 
had another husband an’ raised a houseful o’ 
chil’en sence his time. ’Twas bein’ close bv 
her own eend, I reckon, fetched Un’k Nat to 
her mind — sorter doublin’ roun’ on her own 


BROADOAKS. 


121 


tracks. Po’ ole ’ooman ! She’s been breakin’ 
up mightily all de ye’r, an’ signs ain’t been 
wantin’ o’ de cornin’ o’ de eend, ef folks had 
had sense enuf to read ’em. Her bein’ so per- 
tickler ’bout you-all breakin’ bread in her 
house fur de las’ time; an her dwellin’ so 
cornstant ’pon dem whar’s gone befo’. All 
dem is signs. Look-like de rushin’ o’ de river 
was already in her y’ears.” 

Bernard smiled. “She always wanted to 
cook things for us when we went to see her. 
I don’t think she could ever realize that we 
were no longer children. And she often 
talked of my grandmother — her ‘dear ole 
Mis’,’ she called her.” 

The girl’s tone was gentle and a trifle sad. 
The breaking up of associations was always 
painful to Bernard. Both sisters inherited 
the conservative spirit peculiar to their race 
and section in a very marked degree. 

“She did not talk of them in such a near, 
almost intimate way, generally, Bernard,” 
Rebie observed. “I noticed it ’specially. It 
was as though she could see them — as 
though the veil of the material had worn 


122 


iJROitiOAk^. 


so thin that sight might penetrate to the 
beyond.” 

Mammy turned, as she was leaving the 
room, and paused with her hand on the 
door. 

“Folks say when death is in de a’r de chill 
kin be felt a long way,” she ventured. “An’ 
folks say dat when dars gwine to be another 
buryin’ de graveyard stirs .” 

She speculatively regarded her nurslings, 
her dark face grave with superstitious intent- 
ness. Rebie slightly shuddered, although she 
was not listening to the old saying for the 
first time. 

“When de grave-diggers went in, arter ole 
Mis’ died, dey foun’ de space laid off an’ de 
fust clod turned,” Mammy proceeded. 
“Hadn’t n’ary livin’ creeter been nigh de 
place, but dar ’t was, laid off right ’long side 
o’ ole Mars’r, whar de grave was bound to 
be. ’Twas de same thing when your ma 
died, long time befo’ dat. ’Twarn’t n’ary 
round p’inted shovel ’pon de plantation, 
bekase we-all never used dat sort, an when 
Brer Peyton went in de graveyard over yon- 


BROADOAKSj. 


123 


der, wid de y’uther men to dig your ma’s 
grave, dar ’twas all laid off an’ de clod 
turned wid what look to be one round 
p’inted shovel. An’ when de boys got kilt de 
groun’ was stirred bof times, an’ right dar 
whar ’twas moved we buried ’em. Arter 
Mars Julian got crippled, one day, when he 
was pow’ful low an’ look like every bref 
would be de las’, I slipped on my bonnet an’ 
stepped over to de graveyard bekase I 
know’d if death was nigh de sign would be 
mighty apt to be dar. I never said nothin’ 
to ole Mis’ ’bout it; but I went myse’f. De 
groun’ was jus’ as solid an’ even everywhar 
as it could be, an’ all round your ma’s grave 
de grass was growin’ pretty. Den I know’d 
de danger was gwi’ pass, an’ I come home 
satisfied, an’ we-all buckled in an’ worked on 
Mars Julian an’ pulled him through. An’ all 
de time I kep’ on tellin’ ole Mis’ death war n’t 
nigh bekase ’twarn’t no sign. An’ ole Mis’ 
wouldn’t let on she sot store by it; but it 
holped her mightily.” 

The girls glanced at each other, but made 
no remark. They knew the futility of all 


124 


BROADOAKS. 


endeavor to combat or enlighten the negroes’ 
superstition. It was “bred in the bone,” as 
it were. Bernard had been old enough to 
listen understanding^ to the talk among 
the people at the time of her grandmoth- 
er’s death; and, after the lapse of years, 
Mammy’s account seemed to her substan- 
tially the same. That the surface of the soil, 
even in graveyards, might be stirred without 
sinister portent, she knew full well, and was 
convinced that the ill-omened disturbance 
had been due in every instance to natural 
causes. The seeming coincidences might be 
accounted for readily enough. In the 
country burying-grounds are not subject to 
frequent investigation ; indeed, they are 
rarely entered save for a specific purpose; 
therefore, anything unusual in their appear- 
ance would more certainly attract attention 
just previous to an interment than at any 
other time. Once Bernard had undertaken 
to explain all this to Mammy, but, after 
fifteen minutes’ discourse and demonstration, 
had discovered that she was talking to 
closed ears and a sealed intelligence. 


BROADOAKS. 


125 


Mammy’s confession of faith demanded signs 
and portents, and for them she would, figur- 
atively, have suffered at the stake. 

From the path leading directly to Aunt 
Nancy’s cabin another path diverged and led 
by a slight detour past the old church and 
graveyard ; this latter, but little used, formed 
the arc of a bow, the string of which was 
represented by the more frequented track. 
When, half an hour later, the two girls, 
accompanied by Mammy, reached the place 
where the path forked they turned, as by 
common impulse, into the longer way. 
What they expected to find in the graveyard, 
or whether they expected to find anything, is 
an open question, but, all the same, they 
went some hundreds of yards out of their 
way to satisfy themselves. 

The morning was still young, and on the 
grass and the white clover dew drops rested. 
Beds of wood violets, their time of blossom 
past, nestled close beside the old stone wall, 
while clumps of Indian pinks showed bravely 
carmine, in contrast to the white of the 
blackberry vines and the delicate shading of 


126 


BROADOAKS. 


the eglantine. Against the church Avails, 
covering the roughness and smoothing, the 
primitive outline, hung the beautiful, dark- 
leaved ivy of old England, enfolding it, as the 
grace of a cultured woman will seek to 
enfold and temper the ruggedness of her 
warrior spouse. 

In a tree beside the gate a pair of mocking- 
birds trilled, tunefully, over domestic joys, 
while under the church eaves and in the 
embrasures of its windows a settlement of 
mud swallows sat in their doorways and 
gossiped of their neighbors and, perhaps, 
indulged in criticism of a pair of ground spar- 
rows who were at work behind the tombstone 
of the old British surgeon. 

It looked very tranquil, the girls thought, 
as they entered the enclosure, and they trod 
softly and spoke in hushed tones with the 
instinctive respect true natures always feel in 
a place where humanity mingles with the 
earth. They quietly passed to the graves of 
those who, in life, had been nearest to them, 
and Rebie stooped and laid a bunch of wild 


BROADOAKS. 


127 


flowers on the stone which bore her mother’s 
name. 

In a moment Mammy, who was at a little 
distance, called to them and, when they had 
joined her, directed their attention to sun- 
dry cuts and markings in the turf as 
though the edge of the spade had been thrust 
down in many places. Near a low mound 
quite a large square of turf had been removed 
and then replaced. It was on the side of the 
mound furthest from the graves of the Broad- 
oaks people, and in a line with that of Col- 
onel Kennedy’s grandfather. The cutting 
had been carefully done and, at a short dis- 
tance would have been imperceptible to eyes 
not searching for signs of disturbance. 
Mammy knelt down and raised the piece of 
turf, slipping her hands carefully under it and 
placing it, with the earthy side uppermost, 
against the grave beside her. Her eyes had a 
brooding look, and her whole aspect was 
that of one who assists at some mysterious 
rite. The ignorant mind was impressed, and 
beheld in the evidence before it proof of super- 
natural interference; the cultured intelligence, 


128 


BROADOAKS. 


on the other hand, set to work at once seek- 
ing rational explanation, and endeavoring to 
adjust the occurrence to a place within experi- 
ence. 

“Some man has been digging here,” Rebie 
said, decidedly. “See, the earth has been 
loosened.” She thrust the toe of her boot in 
the bare spot and slightly stirred the soil. “I 
wonder who did it — and for what ? ” 

“It looks like somebody had commenced to 
dig a hole for a rose bush, or young tree, 
and then changed his mind,” Bernard sug- 
gested. “I wonder if father has been hav- 
ing work done here lately.” She glanced 
about for evidences, but could find none. 

Mammy rose to her feet and pointed down- 
ward. “No; ’t ain’t nobody been workin’ 
here,” she said. “No human folks, dat is. 
Mars Julian been busy ’pon de plantation an’ 
’t ain’t nobody cornin’ here to dig in de 
white-folk’s graveyard ’dout he tell ’em. Nig- 
ger don’t love to fool ’long o’ graveyards, 
nohow. ’T ain’t no use talkin’ ! Dat ’ar is 
de sign .” Her tone was resentful, and she 
slightly turned and indicated the mound at 



















































■ 
















WITH A SMILE AT HER OWN FOOLISHNESS, SHE CLICKED THE LATCH 
OF THE GATE SHARPLY AND HURRIED AFTER HER COMPANIONS. — Page 

1 30 . 



BROADOAKS. 


129 


hand. “Dat ’ar is Un’k Nat’s grave. Ole 
Mars’r sot sto’ by dat nigger more’n com- 
mon, an’ arter he gotdrownded savin’ all dem 
folks in de big freshet, ole Mars’r had him 
buried right in here, long o’ de fam’ly — say 
Nat mus’ lay close by whar he gwine res’ his- 
se’f. An’ ole Mis’ alius ’lowed Nancy got to 
be put here too — bein’ as Nancy had raised 
all her chil’en fur her. Dat how come de sign 
set here , ’stead o’ in de culled people’s grave- 
yard.” 

She spoke with conviction and moved 
toward the gate, observing that it was grow- 
ing late and, if death had not already done 
its work, the change would, probably, take 
place before the turn of the day. The young 
ladies followed her, deeply interested and a 
trifle bewildered, utterly scouting Mammy’s 
hypothesis, yet unable to formulate a satis- 
factory one of their own. 

As she turned to close the churcl^ard gate, 
a strange sensation shuddered through Rebie, 
and it seemed to her that she was being 
watched by ambushed eyes. She glanced 
nervously to right and left, but no living 

9 


130 


BROADOAKS. 


creature was in sight save the mud swallows 
under the eaves of the old church and the 
mocking-bird swinging on a branch overhead. 
With a smile at her own foolishness she 
clicked the latch of the gate sharply and hur- 
ried after her companions. 

And the old building, left pnce more in soli- 
tude, took on new lights and shadows as the 
day waxed toward noon, and the graveyard 
lay as silent and deserted as though the pro- 
gression of the seasons had brought the only 
changes it had known for years. 


CHAPTER X. 


Around the cabin where the old woman lay 
dying were knots and groups of negroes, 
standing aimlessly about, or sitting on the 
fence and woodpile. They talked in subdued 
whispers and cast ominous glances in the 
direction of the cabin. Now and again one 
would enter, remain a moment, and return 
to report that “de bref was in her still.” 
The young ladies passed directly to the 
house, scarcely pausing to return the numer- 
ous salutations which greeted them. 

The interior of the cabin presented pictur- 
esque and painful contrasts. The smoke- 
stained walls were adorned with gaudy pic- 
tures, glazed, and mounted like maps, and 
with prints cut from illustrated newspapers ; 
the rafters sustained the usual accumulation 
— splint baskets, large and small, strings of 
red pepper, bags of seed, and an old musket 
with a damaged lock, held in place against a 
beam, by wooden cleats. In the wide fire- 

131 


132 


BROAPOAKS. 


place a few chunks, laid with their noses 
together, made a dull glow, and sent up 
wreaths of gray smoke. The calico curtain 
had been folded aside from the window and 
the garish daylight revealed the secrets of the 
place. On the bed lay the dying woman, her 
breath coming and going in fluctuating gasps, 
her eyes half closed and her wrinkled black 
face made awful by the sickly gray pallor 
underlying its darkness. 

Colonel Kennedy sat in a low chair beside 
the bed, his crutches resting against the wall 
behind him. One withered hand was clasped 
in his and, every now and then, he would 
bend over and speak to her, using the fam- 
iliar Southern term “Mammy.” At the sound 
of his voice the eyelids would quiver and it 
would seem as though the clouded brain 
would feebly strive to formulate response; 
but, as she grew weaker, all effort gradually 
ceased. P'or a moment there was a slight 
stir near the door, followed by the entrance 
of Edward Kennedy and Dr. Seldon. The 
physician stepped at once to the bed, laid his 
finger on the pulse and bent low to catch the 


BROADOAKS. 


133 


labor of heart and breath. Then he shook 
his head, whispered a word to Colonel Ken- 
nedy and drew back beside Bernard, leaving 
the two gentlemen, with the half-dozen 
negroes composing the old woman’s family, 
beside the bed. 

The silence was intense, and the air grew 
heavy with the death presence. A messenger 
stole out with the tidings that the end was 
at hand, and the cabin noiselessly filled with 
negroes who, with the morbid instinct of 
their race, had assembled to witness the 
death scene. The ashen look deepened; the 
breath fluttered in faint gasps, and over the 
face passed that strange look of illumination 
which comes to the dying sometimes when 
the end is free from pain. Colonel Kennedy 
touched his brother’s hand and the two men 
knelt, with bended heads, while the elder 
repeated the prayer for the passing spirit. 

When all was over, the white people with- 
drew, leaving the family to that wild exuber- 
ance of passion which with tropical natures 
is inseparable from every manifestation of 
emotion. Outside of the cabin, the party 


134 


BROADOAKS. 


paused to greet acquaintances among the 
colored people, and for Colonel Kennedy to 
give the necessary directions about the grave. 
It was to be made beside that of old Nat, her 
first husband, in the burying-ground around 
the old church. Peyton would show the men 
the precise spot. 

Then the brothers moved away to speak 
to an elderly colored man, who had come 
out from the presence of death and cast him- 
self down on the woodpile, his brawny 
shoulders bowed and his head resting, face 
downward, on his folded arms. He was not 
weeping. When Colonel Kennedy spoke his 
name and laid a sympathetic hand on his 
shoulder he raised a countenance dull and 
heavy with pain, but tearless. It was an 
unattractive face, very black, and crude and 
unfinished of feature and outline, but the 
eyes looked out with the wistfulness, the 
dumb craving for response seen most often in 
the eyes of a faithful dog, and went far to 
redeem the brutality of the lower jaw. He 
did not rise, nor change his position, beyond 
the simple lifting of his head, but his air was 


BROADOAKS. 


135 


respectful and lie listened to what was being 
said to him. He was old Nancy’s only child 
by her first marriage, and had played with 
the two gentlemen in boyhood. A heavily 
built negro, strong and stalwart, despite his 
fifty odd years, with the reputation of being 
steady and harmless, but slow-witted. 

“Where does Patrick work now?” 
inquired Edward Kennedy a little later, as he 
helped his brother to mount. “I haven’t 
seen him around for weeks, until he came for 
me this morning.” 

“At the mine, I believe. A good many 
negroes are employed there. Redwood 
believes in the thing and keeps a good force 
on. Pat’s a strong fellow, and not much 
past his prime. He can swing a pick with 
any man yet.” 

“Strong as a mule,” assented Mr. Kennedy. 
“He was the best ditcher we ever owned. 
Here, Rebie, come and ride my horse to 
Broadoaks with your father. I’m going to 
walk back through the woods with Bernard. 
I want to stop by the graveyard.” 


136 


BROADOAKS. 


During their walk Bernard mentioned 
Mammy’s superstition and the instances she 
had given in evidence of its truth, and also 
told of the signs of digging found that morn- 
ing in the burying-ground. Uncle Ned, as 
would most sensible men, laughed at the 
notion of spiritual interference in mundane 
matters taking so useless a turn. To mark 
out a grave in the identical spot where the 
person indicated would naturally be buried 
appeared a work of supererogation ; while to 
set the sign of a coming disaster in a place 
where, in all probability, no human being 
would vsee it until after the disaster had 
occurred did not suggest great acumen on 
the part of the spirits. Uncle Ned’s opinion 
of spiritual endowment ranged higher. The 
digging had probably been quite without 
intention, and had doubtless been the work 
of some idle negro passing through the 
graveyard with his spade. And so the sub- 
iect was dismissed. 

It was arranged that old Nancy’s burial 
should take place the following afternoon, as 
negroes have an invincible objection to defer- 


BROADOAKS. 


137 


ring an interment one instant longer than 
necessity shall compel. No sooner is life 
extinct than they set about the preparations, 
which they are generally enabled to complete 
in an incredibly short time from the fact that 
on such occasions there is never a dearth of 
willing and active workers. A morbid inter- 
est in the dramatic effects of the great human 
tragedy is characteristic of a certain phase of 
development, and among negroes this inter- 
est is so intense that spectators race with 
disease to be in at the death. 

At the appointed hour all the colored peo- 
ple for a radius of miles assembled at old 
Nancy’s cabin to assist in performing the last 
offices. Here they met and mingled with 
those who had watched beside the corpse 
through the night and the men who had been 
engaged in preparing the grave. They 
lounged about the little yard and the outer 
room of the cabin, the women exchanging 
mortu ary experiences and family gossip, while 
the men discussed the affairs of the neighbor- 
hood. Among the men were several who 
were employed about the mines and it was 


138 


BROADOAKS. 


mentioned that Mr. Redwood was in New 
York on business, which had rendered it a 
much easier matter to get leave to attend the 
burial. According to the general verdict Mr. 
Redwood was “a mighty head-strong boss, 
an’ boun’ to git er dollar’s wuth o’ work fur 
a dollar pay,” while his more easy-going 
Southern vice-regent could quite comfortably 
content himself with eighty cents worth of 
.service in the hundred of remuneration by fill- 
ing in the vacuum with profane language. 
Mr. Redwood would return the following 
week, they said. 

It was hinted, furthermore, that unless the 
yield of ore for the coming six months should 
exceed that of the past half year things 
might be expected to run to broomsedge at 
the mine. A man from the North had been 
down to inspect operations a few days before 
Mr. Redwood’s departure and had, according 
to the negroes, gone away again “lookin’ 
mighty lonesome, an’ down-sot.” If the 
present superintendent should even succeed in 
“ making buckle and tongue meet” it would 


BROADOAKS. 


139 


be more than had been accomplished by any 
of his predecessors. 

The Kennedys had announced their inten- 
tion of following the remains of their old 
nurse to the grave, and their arrival was 
respectfully awaited. They came in force, 
Colonel Kennedy and his daughters from 
Broadoaks, and Mr. Edward Kennedy with 
his two sons, his daughter Susie and May 
Seldon, who was visiting at Stag Island, the 
name of Uncle Ned’s plantation. The advent 
of the white people was the signal for the 
procession to form ; the plain, dark coffin, 
garlanded with wreaths of flowers brought 
by the young ladies, was borne by six stal- 
wart colored men. 

The afternoon was overcast, with clouds 
banked along the horizon and an atmosphere 
so devitalized that it foreboded storm. The 
woods were motionless, every leaf and twig 
as quiescent as though deprived of life, and 
the sound of the singing, as the procession 
passed to the burying-ground, rose through 
the still branches in wild, plaintive strains, 
whose melody returned upon the brain with 


140 


BROADOAKS. 


hopeless sadness. At the graveyard the 
riders dismounted, and the procession broke 
and crowded into the inclosure without much 
regard for order; the white people standing 
aside so that those bound to the deceased by 
ties of blood might approach most nearly to 
the grave. 

The coffin was lowered into the wooden 
box prepared for it amid deep silence, and 
then an old gray-headed negro knelt and 
offered up a prayer. His face was seamed 
and wrinkled, like wind-dried fruit, and his 
gnarled hands rested on the crook of his 
smooth hickory stick as dead bark rests 
against new growth; his voice, thin and 
reedy, growing more penetrating as he pro- 
ceeded, rose and fell in a sort of singing 
recitative, which played on the nerves of the 
listeners until they thrilled and vibrated, 
responsive as harpstrings. As the climax 
approached the emotional excitement 
increased and vented itself in sounds of 
mourning which accompanied the voice of the 
speaker as the moaning of waves may accom- 
pany the cry of a gull. 


BROADOAKS. 


141 


After the prayer Colonel Kennedy made the 
assembly a short address in which he spoke 
feelingly of the dead woman ; of her faithful- 
ness to his family, of the affection which 
existed between them and of his own regret 
that the link should be severed. Then, in 
simple words he spoke to them of his own 
belief in another life and his hope of spiritual 
reunion in a state wherein death and sorrow 
and suffering should have no part. 

He was heard with attention and then a 
hymn was sung. During the singing old Pey- 
ton stepped forward and slipped a small clod 
of earth into Colonel Kennedy’s hand, which 
he held a moment and then cast into the open 
grave. The negroes, one after another, 
stooped and lifted handsful of the gravelly 
soil which they threw into the grave as they 
sang, as a token that the ministrations of 
kindred and friends must here, perforce, come 
to an end. 

It was a wild scene — filled with sounds and 
suggestions of whose mournfulness both eye 
and ear took cognizance. The plaintive music 
with its undercurrent of stifled sobbing; the 


142 


BROADOAKS. 


open grave with the dusky figures casting in 
the earth ; the thud of the gravel as it struck 
the coffin lid combined to force on the con- 
sciousness a realization of the significance of 
the words “earth to earth, dust to dust, 
ashes to ashes.” 

Rebie completely unnerved, wept convul- 
sively, with her head on Bernard’s shoulder, 
and Colonel Kennedy, resting still on his 
crutches, gazed away into the distance with 
eyes that, seemingly, took little heed of the 
leaden sky, the darkling wood, or the sorrow- 
ing humanity at hand. 

As they turned to leave the place they were 
joined by Geoffrey Bruce, and Rebie, glancing 
upward through her tears, met in his eyes 
a look of tenderness that was like sunlight 
through rifts in a dark cloud. 


CHAPTER XI. 


“ WiivL you come for a ride? ” Bruce asked, 
when the party had remounted. 

Rebie glanced up doubtfully at the sky 
Her trim cloth habit and jockey-cap had seen 
good service, and were, in her estimation, past 
being injured, still the prospect of being 
caught in a thunder storm several miles from 
home was not alluring. 

“ Do n’t you think it will rain ? ” she queried. 

“No,” responded Bruce, gathering up his 
reins. “The clouds are too well distributed. 
The sky is gray all over. It’s going to lower 
all the afternoon and thicken up and rain 
after nightfall.” 

He spoke with assurance, and as though 
his conclusion were the result of minute obser- 
vation of meteorological laws. Rebie did not 
believe him to be one whit more weather-wise 
than she was herself, but the cool dampness 
of the air was grateful to her flushed cheeks, 

£ind the swift movement and need for keeping 
143 


144 


BROADOAKS. 


eye and hand alert would tranquilize her 
nerves. When the wood road opened out into 
the main thoroughfare leading to Broadoaks 
she followed the motion of Bruce’s bridle arm 
and turned her owtL horse in the opposite 
direction from that taken by the rest of the 
party. 

At first Bruce made no effort at conversa- 
tion. The girl’s mood was uncertain, her emo- 
tions had been stirred by circumstances with 
which he had nothing to do ; her imagination 
was filled with images and scenes apart 
from his image, or any scene which his pres- 
ence would naturally suggest; her inmost 
thoughts were not, as yet, colored by his 
influence. Bruce felt this, and was content to 
ride quietly by her side until their moods 
should gradually adapt themselves and the 
conditions between them become harmonious. 
He was a patient man ; his ten years’ struggle 
with the Nemean lion of debt had trained 
him in the knowledge which teaches that at 
certain junctures the policy of inaction is the 
part of wisdom. Then, too, his naturally 
keen perceptions were quickened by the dom- 


BROADOAKS. 


145 


inance of the emotion most potent for the 
development of sympathy and insight. The 
state of his feelings toward Rebie Kennedy 
may be summed up in the scriptural phrase, 
“and his heart clave unto the woman, and, 
behold, he loved her as his own soul.” So 
loving her he could understand with the 
subtler part of his nature and protect and 
care for her with the part which was more 
masculine. 

They had turned aside into a road but 
little used and rode quietly, for the way 
ascended and was rocky and a trifle over- 
grown. On either hand undergrowth, scrub 
oak, sassafras and sumach bushes, inter- 
spersed with old field pines, encroached upon 
the roadway outstretching verdant arms as 
though to bar a passage. Bruce kept his 
horse a step in advance and held them aside 
for her to pass. In a scrubby little cedar a 
red-bird had perched himself, the dark green 
of the background throwing out the bril- 
liance of his plumage. He turned his crested 
head about and glanced at them interroga- 
tively, then, finding that they meditated no 
10 


146 


BROADOAKS. 


harm to him nor his, flirted his wings and 
called to his mate, who popped her head out 
from under a twig and watched them pass, 
reaching forward to get a better view, with 
the frank curiosity of a rustic regarding the 
world from her cabin door. Among the 
bushes catbirds mocked and called to one 
another, and away in the fields, beyond the 
wood, partridges blithely whistled. Across 
the road a squirrel sped and whisked him- 
self up into a tree with a great affectation of 
terror. 

Rebie’s thoughts drifted to another ride she 
had taken with Bruce some weeks before. 
They had called at Dr. Seldon’s, away up 
the river, and, returning homeward, had 
stopped at Stag Island and rested for awhile, 
and tasted Uncle Ned’s Catawba wine, sup- 
plemented by the delicious little cookies Susie 
was so clever at making. Sue had taken 
them into the old garden to see some new 
roses Aunt Mary had recently received from 
the North. They had sauntered along the 
old walks, bordered with hedges of green 
box, and sentineled, at intervals, with tall 


BROADOAKS. 


147 


box-trees trimmed into stiff cones; and had 
admired the honeysuckle on the arbors and 
the quaint circles and triangles where, earlier 
in the season, hyacinths, snowdrops and 
lilies-of-the-valley bloomed profusely. Bruce 
had called their attention to a peewee’s nest, 
filled with ungainly, clamorous young ones, 
and lodged among the blossoms of a rose 
bush; and to the humming-birds, flashing 
like jewels, around the old mimosa tree, 
whose branches were covered with a wealth 
of fringe-like flowers of salmon pink. The 
air had been redolent of sweet things, the 
breath of roses and of jessamine, and the 
odor of box and calacanthus. Susie had 
filled her hands with flowers, and Rolfe had 
cut a great bunch of mimosa blossoms to 
send Bernard, because the tree did not thrive 
at Broadoaks and Bernard loved the per- 
fume. Bruce had wanted to carry them all 
for her, but she would not let him. Her sis- 
ter’s gift must reach her uninjured ; so, after 
they had mounted, she had insisted on hav- 
ing the bouquet in her own hands. 


148 


BROADOAKS. 


As they were coming through the little 
stretch of woods near the big gate, they had 
overtaken Crummie, with a brier-blade on 
his shoulder and old Boler at his heels. The 
boy had been poking about among the 
bushes and, as they neared him, a rabbit 
started up and ran across the road, almost 
under the noses of the horses, with the dog 
and boy in hot pursuit. Her horse had 
frightened at the noise and reared and given 
trouble ; she had lost control of him, owing 
to the unexpectedness of the occurrence and 
her hands being encumbered with the 
flowers. How white Bruce had grown, and 
how swift and strong had been his grasp of 
her rein ! And amid his alarm for her safety, 
and indignation with the cause of the com- 
motion, how gentle he had been with the 
horse, how firm and soothing. 

Rebie had all a primitive woman’s rever- 
ence and admiration for courage and phys- 
ical strength. Her fancy lingered over the 
incident with contentment. She liked riding 
beside him, they two alone together, shut 
into a world apart by the encircling forest ; 


fiROADOAKS. 


149 


she did not turn her face, nor glance toward 
him, but she was content that he should be 
there. 

The road widened and grew better as it 
wound along the crest of the hill ; the horses 
could move more briskly. Half uncon- 
sciously, the words of a warrior song rose to 
her lips and she sang them aloud in a soft 
voice that set itself to the rhythm of the 
hoof-beats : 

“In days of old, when Knights were bold, 

And Barons held their sway, 

A warrior bold, with spurs of gold, 

Sang merrily his lay : — 

My love is young and fair, 

My love hath golden hair, 

And eyes so blue, and heart so true 
That none with her compare; 

So what care I, 

Though death be nigh ? 

I ’ll fight for love, or die.” 

Bruce leaned forward and laid his hand on 
her horse’s neck. He had turned himself a 
little in the saddle and his face was nearly on 
a level with her own ; it was pale, as that of 


150 


BROADOAKS. 


one in the grip of strong emotion, his eyes 
were alight, his nostrils quivered, and the 
hand on the horse’s mane trembled. 

“How is a man to prove himself? ” he ques- 
tioned, in a low tone, his eyes seeking hers. 
“ Then , with lance and sword, by field and 
flood, he might show the love that was in 
him — might hope that his ‘spurs of gold,’ 
with all they were held to represent, would 
win him favor in a woman’s eyes. But now ! 
— how shall a man prove his longing to 
shake off unworthiness for love’s sake ? 
How shall he show her that he, too, 
would ‘fight for love, or die,’ if there were 
occasion? Words don’t fill the measure- 
men who love least can talk best about it.” 

The woman shrank a little, drawing away 
in the saddle; her head drooped and she 
would not look at him ; his earnestness 
thrilled, and at the same time troubled her. 
The horses, walking slowly, pressed against 
each other. 

When he spoke again the man’s voice had 
taken a tone of tenderness that was like the 


BROADOAKS. 


15l 


note of a wood-dove, wooing his mate in 
spring. 

“The love is the same,” he murmured. “It 
must be. Just that — to hold a woman apart, 
as in a sure fortress; to guard, cherish and 
protect her through life. To make love a 
refuge, warm and strong, filled always with 
sunshine and comfort. Is it not so, sweet- 
heart? A man may do this still — may be a 
leal knight to his lady, a true husband to the 
woman who shall come to him as his wife.” 
He bent nearer, and his voice sank almost to 
a whisper, intense with emotion, penetrating 
with strange sweetness. “Will you come to 
me, love? Will you take the love garnered 
in my heart, and give me the right to care for 
you always? ” 

So he pleaded, pouring out at her feet the 
treasure of his love, royally, unselfishly, and 
with a true man’s proud humility. 

And Rebie, hearkening as one in the 
unreality of a dream, did not know herself, 
nor her own heart. Did she love him? 
Could she love him? She could not tell. 
For, with the tones of this brave lover’s voice, 


152 


fcROADOAKS. 


even in the midst of his pleading, imagination 
would mingle the tones of another voice 
which, to her had told no tale of love; and 
beside the impassioned face so near her would 
appear the face of another man. She was 
afraid, not understanding herself, and cried 
out to him that he must give her time ; that 
he had bewildered her, and must wait and let 
her learn the truth from her own heart. She 
put out her hand to him, trusting him to be 
good to her, to take care of her, even though 
she should sorely try him. Just a little time, 
she said — a few weeks — a month ! Yes, that 
would be best. In a month she would know 
and could give him his answer. 

And Bruce forbore to press her, accepting 
the delay as a knight accepts his initiatory 
vigil. 


CHAPTER XII. 


In the differentiation of the genus homo a 
good many things must be allowed for. Con- 
sideration must be given to antecedent 
causes of great variety and complexity — 
climate, locality, and the accumulated inher- 
itance of traits and proclivities experience 
has generated and the survival of the fittest 
has served to perpetuate in the particular 
species to which a man may happen to 
belong. From the standpoint that a present 
generation may be the inevitable outcome of 
previous generations ; that an individual may 
be “the sum of his ancestors,” it seems reason- 
able to demand that charity should enlarge 
its mantle, that judgment should wield some- 
thing less ponderous than a sledge-hammer, 
and that justice should be tempered with a 
finer and more discriminating mercy. If, for 
example, a man could bring himself to real- 
ize that the fact of his neighbor being an ill- 
conditioned fellow may be due not, as he 

153 


154 


iiftOAbOAfc^. 


hastily supposed, to purely individual 
“cussedness,” but is rather the operation of 
a law of “cussedness,” traceable backward 
until the mind refuses to follow, the existing 
exponent of the law might meet with more 
consideration, and instead of being hated and 
abused might come to be regarded with scien- 
tific interest. Also the man who takes away 
his neighbor’s coat instead of being jailed or 
beaten might in time receive the cloak besides, 
since he doubtless but obeyed a resistless 
predatory law of great antiquity. 

Could the general intelligence be forced to 
take cognizance of demonstrable facts a 
good many sins now regarded as scarlet 
might become on investigation only a lively 
shade of pink 

Stuart Redwood, sitting on an empty pow- 
der can, turned bottom upward, and staring 
at the hole in the ground which represented 
the entrance to the Lone Jack mine, was 
indulging in a most unscientific line of 
thought relative to some of his neighbors. 
His trip to New York had been very disheart- 
ening and he had come South again feeling 


kROADOAl£S. 


155 


baffled and mutinous. The syndicate, which 
he had the honor to represent, a gigantic 
financial octopus with legs extending prettv 
well over the country, had met in council and 
determined that unless Redwood should show 
them better reason for supposing that there 
was money in the Lone Jack mine within the 
next three months than he had yet been able to 
show at all, operations must be suspended 
and the stock-holders notified that they 
might thank their lucky stars they would not 
be required to throw good money afteV bad. 

The syndicate, engaged in extensive mining 
operations in various localities, had neither 
money nor inclination to allow Redwood lat- 
itude for continued experiment in the, to 
them, trifling side issue in Virginia. This 
they demonstrated in language concise and 
forcible, influenced thereto, as Redwood 
believed, by the representations of the stranger 
who had been sent down to spy out the 
promise of the land. The big men, as usual, 
overlooked the fact that in knocking the 
props from the Virginia venture they would 
cause the thing to settle down on a few small 


156 


imoADOARS. 


men who, financially, were incapable of 
standing from under. 

Redwood believed in the mine, and had 
backed his belief with every dollar he was 
worth, and the admission of the mine to be a 
failure and acceptance of the fact that his 
stock, instead of proving a finger-post to 
fortune, must be regarded as simple evidence of 
miscalculation was a thing to which he could 
in nowise reconcile himself. His dominating 
nature rose in protest, and his will fretted 
and strained like a hound in a leash. Not 
even to himself would he allow that his 
judgment in regard to the venture might be 
at fault. True, the popular verdict pro- 
nounced the mine, for absorption without 
adequate return, no better than a horse 
leech; but then the popular verdict was 
Southern and, to Redwood, without com- 
prehensive business basis. 

His anger against the men in New York 
who refused to give him time and a larger 
command of money burned hot — so hot, in 
fact, that had the can on which he sat been 
full instead of empty the powder must have 


BROADOAKS. 


157 


ignited and, so far as Redwood was con- 
cerned, brought the matter to a conclusion. 
Upon certain fresh representations he had 
been able to secure that additional three 
months ; but what was a pitiful twelve weeks 
wherein to combat and overthrow senti- 
ments, prejudices, methods of thought and 
conduct which many times twelve years had 
been consumed in building? Redwood felt 
thwarted and ill-used, and sat very still* 
with a scowl on his face, allowing his mind, 
in spite of modern culture, to work along 
unscientific lines. 

The man had been reared in a hard school, 
under a false and superficial system. All of 
his life he had been surrounded by the con- 
stant strain after wealth, or the appearance 
of wealth, until money had, insensibly, 
become to him a prime factor of existence. 
From the New England village wherein the 
richest man had been the man most con- 
sidered, through a life of ups and downs 
wherein the fullest fruition of hopes appeared 
to attend on the longest purse, the omni- 
present need of money had begotten in 


158 


BROADOAKS. 


Redwood the omnipresent greed for money. 
His realization of the possibilities of life, and 
his requirements, were well-nigh without 
horizon. Contentment with an existing 
state of things, to him, was stagnation. He 
wanted to plan, to work, to achieve; to be 
something and somebody in his day and 
generation, and, to his thinking, the initial 
step was the acquisition of wealth. Red- 
wood’s trend was practical. He intended to 
accomplish a good many things, should 
length of days be his, and chief among them 
he placed the accomplishment of a fortune. 

A few years after the close of the war the 
attention of Northern capitalists began to 
be called to the existence of iron, manganese 
and slate in the James river valley and from 
time to time men would be sent down to 
prospect. The slate was found to be of fine 
quality and in vast quantities, and quarries 
were opened about thirty miles from the 
Kennedy neighborhood which paid very 
handsomely. Operations in manganese were 
not so successful, the ore having, even more 
than is usual with it, a deceitful habit of 


BROADOAKS. 


159 


lying in pockets and of giving out unexpect- 
edly, after a fine show, in a manner which 
was felt to be exasperating. In one mine, 
worked for a time with some prospect of 
success, the shaft had not gone down fifty 
feet before that which appeared to be an 
underground lake was struck and, as no 
company can stand pumping water to waste 
where the supply seems. inexhaustible, the 
venture had been abandoned. 

In connection with it, however, Redwood 
had been sent to Virginia and had passed a 
week in the manganese region, and also 
visited the slate quarries. Certain peculiar- 
ities in the conformation of the country had 
impressed themselves upon his memory and 
when, five years later, he had found himself 
with a couple of months of unemployed time 
on his hands he had put into execution an 
intention long dormant in his mind and come 
down to Virginia to look about on his own 
account. 

From the presence of iron, manganese, 
quartz, slates and shales in a sort of belt he 
began at once to suspect the existence of 


160 


BROADOAKS. 


auriferous gravels. He commenced asking 
questions and speedily discovered that the 
presence of gold in that section of the coun- 
try was a well known fact. There was an 
old mine thereabout, the people at the court 
house told him, which had been worked in a 
spasmodic way before the war; but it did 
not amount to much. That is, it had never 
paid. Specimens of gold from it were in 
most of the museums and in the mint at 
Philadelphia. The jeweler at Memnon 
used no other for his work. The poor whites 
and negroes washed the gravel of a creek 
that flowed near the old mine and carried the 
grains and flakes of gold so obtained into 
Memnon to the shopkeepers screwed up in 
rags and bits of paper. It had always been 
done — indeed, it was supposed that knowl- 
edge of the whereabouts of the gold had been 
derived from the Indians. Even the first 
working of the mine ante-dated the memory 
of the oldest individual Redwood could dis- 
cover about the place. 

Accustomed to see brains quicken and facul- 
ties grow alert with the mere mention of 


BROADOAKS. 


161 


aught that might bear on the question of 
finance, Redwood was amazed at the indiffer- 
ence, not to say apathy, with which the 
presence in their midst of the king of metals 
appeared to have been regarded for years by 
these singular Virginians. They discussed 
the subject in an impersonal way, as one of 
no special interest to anyone save, perhaps, 
as local tradition. Later he learned that the 
neighborhood once, for a year or so after its 
opening, had had faith in the mine, which the 
mine had failed to justify. And not even Vir- 
ginians, with all their traditional careless- 
ness in regard to matters financial, can con- 
jure up enthusiasm about that which has 
caused their pockets to suffer. 

To the little town in an adjoining county, 
which rejoiced in the incongruous name of 
Memnon, Redwood at once proceeded, deter- 
mined to thrust his acquaintance upon the 
jeweler and, if possible, obtain a sight of 
some specimens of the gold. 

He found the jeweler an elderly man, very 

accessible and loquacious. When he learned 

that Redwood wished some trinket made of 
xx 


162 


BROADOAKS. 


Virginia gold and would prefer gold from 
that very section, he opened his show-case 
and handed out several trays. 

“There isn’t another man in the state 
could fill that order, I reckon,’’ he remarked, 
as Redwood examined the trinkets. “It’s 
good gold, too. Came from the old ‘Lone 
Jack’ mine, as they call it, over in the next 
county.” 

“Do you get much of it?” Redwood 
inquired. “The mine has been abandoned 
for years, hasn’t it? ” 

“Yes, sir. The mine’s played out. There 
are chemical properties in the soil, or water, 
about there that play the mischief with 
machinery ; precipitate on it and corrode like 
a canker. During the war the Confederate 
government had powder works near there 
for a while; the earth yields considerable 
nitre. No wealthy company has ever had 
hold of the mine in my time. It’s been tink- 
ered at, but never really worked. Since 
emancipation knocked the bottom out of 
things in the South there hasn’t been much 
capital in Virginia to risk in mines. A little 


BROADOAKS. 


163 


gold is brought me still, but nothing like so 
much as formerly. It is panned from surface 
gravel.” 

He opened a drawer and took from it a 
small paper parcel. It contained about a 
salt-spoonful of gold in tiny flakes, and one 
little nugget the size of a pea. 

“This came from creek gravel. A fellow 
brought it in last week. The folks around 
there pan with an old tin bucket, or basin, 
and have no way of collecting, so the yield is 
never much.” 

Redwood examined the little nugget under 
a pocket lens. It was irregular in shape, but 
good metal. 

“ Do you often get grains as good as this ? ” 
He turned the specimen in the palm of his 
hand. 

“Not now. In my father’s time they came 
in even larger ; but the creek gravel has been 
pretty well washed over, I reckon, and the 
niggers haven’t energy enough to dig. Nug- 
gets have been found as big as a sparrow’s 
egg, and the rock from the mine used to yield 
fairly,” 


164 


BROADOAKS. 


Redwood’s interest deepened. What had 
been, might be again. With improved machin- 
ery, increased scientific knowledge and mod- 
ern methods who could say what results 
might not be achieved? His pulses stirred, 
and his imagination constructed fair pictures 
of prosperity and success. He would look 
into this matter. Perhaps the wheel of for- 
tune had a turn in it for him. He examined 
some rings in a little tray, fitting them, one 
after another, to his finger as he talked : 

“Has gold been found anywhere else in this 
vicinity? ” 

The jeweler laughed. “ The niggers say so ; 
but in a place where, according to them it 
wouldn’t be safe to look for it again,” he 
replied significantly. “There’s a story among 
them that the old Kennedy grave-yard is full 
of gold. The niggers say that when the grave 
of the first old Kennedy was dug, after they 
struck the gravel, flakes of gold turned up 
with every spadeful of dirt as thick as stars 
on a clear night. The darkies of that day 
were a superstitious lot — worse even than 
now, and the tale runs that when the sun 


BROADOAKS. 


165 


shone on the dirt and into the grave they 
were scared nigh to death; thought it was 
sparkles of hell-fire. It has been claimed that 
gold has been seen in digging other graves, 
but in nothing like such quantity. The garnet 
ring, did you say ? All right, sir. It’s a good 
stone— full-colored, like old Port in sunlight. 
Came from North Carolina; so did those 
amethysts.” 

He turned to put up the ring and, while so 
occupied, continued to talk with the garrulity 
of the old. 

“People used to say that the Kennedys 
were so proud they couldn’t be satisfied to 
rest in common earth— had to be buried in 
gold. They were a rich and powerful family 
in the old time; owned a couple of counties 
among them. A wild lot, some of them, 
gambled, and kept open house; they half 
broke themselves that way, and the war fin- 
ished the job for them. Nice people they were, 
too ; but prejudiced and as obstinate as the 
devil.” 

The old man was digressing. Redwood 
brought him back to the point of interest 


166 


BROADOAKS. 


with another question. The Kennedy char- 
acteristics were of no interest to him at that 
stage of the proceedings. 

“Wasn’t the matter ever looked into? ” he 
demanded. “Had nobody curiosity enough 
to have the soil about old Kennedy’s grave 
examined and analyzed?” 

“Lord bless you, no!’ ? the jeweler 
responded, with amusement. “Dr. Kennedy 
wasn’t the first man buried there. The par- 
ish church stood in the lot and, for some years, 
other people around used the grave-yard as 
well as the Kennedy s. They had their own 
part portioned off, but the property was con- 
sidered to belong to the church, although I 
do n’t believe either the Kennedys or Bruces, 
to whom the land first belonged, ever gave a 
deed to it. As far as I know, it ’s covered by 
the old Bruce title now. There was a sort of 
swop between the proprietors once to 
straighten out a line. All the folks about 
had plenty of money, in those days, in land 
and niggers, without prospecting among 
corpses for gold. The idea would be infer- 
nally unpleasant, you see. And ’specially if 


BROADOAKS. 


167 


the dead to be disturbed should happen to 
have been your own flesh and blood while 
living. The story has died out of late years. 
When Colonel Kennedy’s wife and sons were 
buried there wasn’t any talk of gold being 
seen. Nor when his mother’s grave was dug 
either. The whole thing may be an exagger- 
ation of the darkies.” 

Redwood’s look was interrogatory. 

“ Niggers are, or used to be, immensely fond 
of exalting the horn of the family they hap- 
pened to belong to. Their white people, in 
life or death, were the richest, best, and most 
considered in the country. There was gold 
found in that graveyard, I reckon, but noth- 
ing like what was reported. The niggers’ 
description knocked California clean out of 
the ring.” 

There was a little more talk between the 
men of a discursive nature, and then Red- 
wood paid for his trinket and took his depart- 
ure with his head full of schemes and his 
blood beginning to heat with the gold fever. 
Within a week he had made the necessary 
examinations and returned to the North 


168 


BROADOAKS. 


intent on pushing forward the project he had 
in view. And so energetic and untiring did he 
prove himself that the possibilities of the 
Lone Jack mine, given through the spectrum 
of his hopes, showed colors sufficiently bright 
to cause a New York syndicate to take hold 
of it. A company was formed, stock was 
issued, and work in the mine recommenced. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


All through the autumn and winter 
Redwood worked, lured onward by promises 
that seemed ever on the point of fulfilment, 
yet, somehow, remained there impaled. 
There were many natural obstructions to 
success, chemical difficulties, and the lack of 
skilled labor which made every effort to 
overcome a disadvantage a work of time and 
calculation. The ignorance and stupidity of 
the labor he was forced to employ caused 
Redwood, at times, to gnash his teeth with 
impotent fury. He had no gift for under- 
standing and controlling negroes and his 
abstract interest in them, founded on theory, 
cooled, under actual contact, and congealed 
into something very like antipathy. From 
over-rating them, he swung to the opposite 
side of the circle and under-rated them 
immensely. All of which the negroes came 
to know as well as though he had told them 
and, being in nine cases out of ten, more 

169 


170 


BROADOAKS. 


knave than fool, made things far more 
difficult for him. 

Redwood came to suspect at last, although 
he was powerless to prove, that his colored 
hands were, indirectly, responsible for many 
of his disappointments. Had the yield of the 
mine justified him, he would have discharged 
them all and imported trained miners ; but it 
fell far short of his hopes, while the expense 
of getting out the ore was heavier than he 
had expected. He held doggedly to his faith 
in the mine in spite of reverses, installed a 
man of the country, who was familiar with 
their ways, as manager of the colored force, 
got a couple of practical miners down to act 
as superintendents and worked on, hoping 
for better luck, and sending North the best 
reports he conscientiously could. 

He could not help feeling, however, that 
fortune was giving him a “rough and tum- 
ble ” of considerable severity, for he seemed 
to himself to stand for his venture against 
the world. To a man of different caliber 
even his intercourse with the gentry around 
would have brought discouragement. He 


BROADOAKS. 


171 


enjoyed it, as a cultured man must always 
enjoy the society of his peers, but their lack 
of business method, their tranquility under 
exasperating and quite remediable condi- 
tions, and their good humored disbelief in his 
own ultimate success was as a shirt of Nessus 
to him. With Redwood, instead of begetting 
a sense of impotence and futility, the public 
attitude acted as a counter-irritant, and 
brought to the surface all the persistence, 
pluck, and acumen which had come to him 
from his Puritan ancestors. 

His mind began to dwell on the idea that 
there might be gold in other places in the 
vicinity — better ore, and unvexed by the 
natural disadvantages which trammeled the 
Lone Jack mine. He began to prospect 
about the hills, taking bearings from his own 
mine and covering a radius of miles. Gradu- 
ally, as his investigations remained barren 
of result, his circle diminished and his steps 
turned more and more frequently to the old 
Broadoaks church. He would lean on the 
wall surrounding it, or sit on one of the flat 
weather-stained tombstones and speculate as 


172 


BROADOAKS. 


to which might be the grave of the British 
surgeon, and whether, given that as a point 
of departure, it would not be possible to 
strike the vein, if there should be a vein, 
beyond the enclosure. The only trouble 
would be, he thought, the impossibility of 
guessing at the trend of the deposit. He 
might burrow like a mole all around the 
place and yet miss it after all. He could not 
even utilize his knowledge of metalurgical 
laws, for he was ignorant, not only of the 
trend, but of the nature of the deposit. 
Report said that the gold had showed itself 
in auriferous gravel, but the prevalence of 
quartz hereabout, the general aspect of the 
country and the developments in his own 
mine, five miles away, caused Redwood to 
incline to the theory of quartz veins. Then, 
also, the story was one of some antiquity, 
and had passed through too many mouths 
and borne the impress of too many imagina- 
tions not to have been altered in almost 
every essential save the main fact. If he 
could only examine the indications for him- 
self he could, of course, arrive at some conclu- 


BROADOAKS. 


173 


vsion as to how much of the account was 
legendary. 

Haunting the place as he did, he soon 
became familiar with the fact that Colonel 
Kennedy likewise frequently visited the bury- 
ing-ground, and from the hillside above, a 
window of the old church, or some other 
coigne of vantage, would watch the soldierly 
figure sitting motionless on his horse for 
moments at a time, gazing, with eyes sad 
with memories, at the spot of earth which 
held the material part of his loved ones. 

Once, immersed in his own thoughts and 
calculations, Redwood had failed to notice 
the sound of the horse’s approach and was 
only recalled to consciousness of his sur- 
roundings by the voice of Colonel Kennedy 
givinghim “ good-evening.” 

Redwood glanced up, and came across to 
the wall to shake hands. It was a mild 
afternoon in mid- winter, one of the kind that 
serve as a reminder that the brave old earth 
is slowly turning the hither cheek to the 
sun’s caress. Bven in quiescence Redwood 
had found his overcoat oppressive and had 


174 


BROADOAKS. 


thrown it back; he noticed that Colonel 
Kennedy wore none at all, and that his well- 
brushed coat was becoming shiny at the 
seams and his old slouch hat decidedly the 
worse for wear. His horse was good, how- 
ever, and Redwood knew that the hospitality 
of his house was of the ancient order. 

After a few unimportant remarks had passed 
between the men Colonel Kennedy expressed 
some surprise that a healthy, vigorous 
young fellow with life and hope pulsing in his 
veins should select so lonely and sad a place 
for his evening meditations. It was sugges- 
tive, he admitted, and quoted Grey and 
Shakespeare as he tossed the mane from side 
to side of his horse’s neck. He appeared to 
be in an accessible mood and Redwood, 
toward whom the old soldier had always 
maintained a fine reserve, as one who occu- 
pied rather the position of guest than friend, 
took advantage of it and led him on to talk 
of the place, and of the people who lay buried 
in the shadow of the old church. 

The grave of the founder of the family in 
Virginia, he was informed, lay amid the roots 


BROADOAKS. 


175 


of a giant oak which stood to the left of the 
building and near the center of the enclosure. 
It had been the old man’s wish that an Eng- 
lish oak should be planted on his grave and a 
tree had been imported from the home of his 
boyhood in Staffordshire. For centuries he 
hoped that his living monument would show 
to his descendants in the New World that, 
while his body might mingle with alien soil, 
with his spirit dwelt ever a love for the 
mother-land as sturdy and enduring as was 
the growth of her vigorous emblem. 

As he told the little story Colonel Kennedy 
pointed out that the graves of the old Tory’s 
immediate descendants lay mostly within the 
shadow of the oak’s spreading branches, so 
that, even in death, he seemed to afford them 
shelter. 

Pleased with the young man’s attention, 
and stirred with memories Colonel Kennedy 
talked on, telling anecdotes of this and the 
other of the dead men and women resting 
near; serious stories some of them, and one 
or two that were pathetic ; but for the most 
part clever and illustrative of traits of 


176 


BROADOAKS. 


Southern character, and of a mode of 
thought and life vastly different from that of 
the present half century. 

As he listened Redwood began to realize 
that the speaker even belonged to another 
phase of development, and that motives 
powerful with ordinary men might, with 
him, possess less weight than thistle-down. 

What possibility would there be of arous- 
ing cupidity in a man whose every word and 
action unconsciously made clear that, with 
him, sentiment was, and ever would be, a 
dominating force ? What greed of gain could 
be awakened in a nature utterly oblivious of 
the thousand and one indispensable require- 
ments of an artificial civilization ? The 
colonel would, in all probability, vastly pre- 
fer to live out his life in a shabby coat, or no 
coat at all, rather than to disturb by a hair’s 
breadth associations sacred and endeared to 
him, even though, by so doing, he might 
secure for himself and his family unlimited 
purple and fine linen. 

Redwood made no allusion to the golden 
legend, either then or afterward, directly to 


BROADOAKS. 


177 


Colonel Kennedy; but be could not win his 
own consent to let the matter rest, so one 
evening when a good many representatives 
of the Kennedy clan happened to be gathered 
together at Broadoaks, he put an analogous 
case, laying his scene in the West and taking, 
as it were, the sense of the meeting. He was 
not surprised that the women should, with 
one voice, express disapproval, for the crea- 
ture feminine is largely given to sentiment, 
or the expression of sentiment. In Red- 
wood’s estimation their opinion counted for 
very little, since he had known many women 
accept, without a scruple, benefits secured by 
means little short of unrighteous. But that 
men with perceptions far above the average, 
should adopt, unanimously, the feminine 
view struck him as remarkable. 

“It’s a barbarous thing to do,” Uncle Ned 
declared. “No, I beg the savages’ pardon! 
It’s lower down than that— barbarism, so 
called, isn’t incompatible with a decent sort 
of respect for the dead of one’s own tribe. 
To kick a man out of his grave to hunt for 


12 


178 


BROADOAKS. 


gold strikes me as about as low-down a 
thing as a fellow could do.” 

In the light which Uncle Ned presented it 
the picture was certainly unpleasant. 

“A fellow who would countenance a per- 
formance like that would pawn his father’s 
mummy, or gamble away the family burying- 
ground,” Tom observed. “He ought to be 
tarred and feathered.” 

“The thing is done often,” Redwood 
defended. “I don’t mean that graveyards 
are opened to prospect for gold — a case like 
that is, I admit, unusual. But the dead are 
often removed from one place to another, 
and so long as the change is made decently 
and respectfully that is all that’s required. 
Near cities such removals are of frequent 
occurrence.” 

“For sanitary reasons, or from motives of 
sentiment, I know,” acquiesced Uncle Ned. 
“Then the thing is all right enough. Nobody 
can say a word against it. But the idea of 
violating a graveyard for gold — for as con- 
temptible a passion as greed of gain, to me, 
looks uncommonly revolting. God knows 


BROADOAKS. 


179 


what the world can be coming to when the 
dead can’t moulder away in peace because 
the living must needs sink a shaft in the place 
they occupy.” 

There was a great deal more said, all of it 
in the same vein, which, to the man of the 
world, sounded fanciful, overstrained, and 
devoid of practical foundation. He attempted 
to argue the case along the certainly tenable 
and defensible lines of the good of the many 
transcending in importance the repose of the 
few ; but, after a few sentences, desisted, rec- 
ognizing the hopelessness of establishing cool, 
calculating estimation of values in lieu of 
sentiments and prejudices with a people as 
emotional as were those inhabiting this prim- 
itive spot. When Tom Kennedy, a young 
fellow, and one, presumably, more at one with 
his generation than could be the older men, 
hotly declared that according to his — Red- 
wood’s — theory any action, no matter how 
infamous, might be defended, and that, viewed 
in the light he indicated that transaction in 
innocent blood eighteen hundred years ago 
might be established as meritorious, Red- 


180 


BROADOAKS. 


wood let the subject lapse. Of what use was 
it to talk common sense, or sense of any sort, 
to people apparently incapacitated by nature 
for its reception ? 

The thought of that gold haunted him, 
worked in him like a spell. In sleep, when 
imagination, untrammeled by will, made 
vague, disconnected journeyings into the 
unknown, he would seem to see, with the eyes 
of some inner consciousness, a picture that 
was ever near and ever the same. It would 
seem a day long past and a stately calm 
would brood over the land; the Broadoaks 
church, unstained by time, unsoftened by ivy 
would stand out against a forest back- 
ground; around it a low wall, as now, but 
the sweep of turf within the enclosure was 
raised into hillocks in few places. The old 
oak was missing, and in its stead would 
appear an open grave, with negroes in gar- 
ments of antique cut, throwing out the earth 
in spadefuls which glittered as they fell on a 
great heap near at hand, where the sunlight 
seemed to concentrate and, almost, to solidify 
into particles of gold. 


UROAfcOAltS. 


181 


In despair of accomplishing his design 
through the present owners of the soil Red- 
wood turned over in his mind that other 
allusion made by the Memnon jeweler. The 
man had spoken of the property on which the 
church stood having once belonged to the 
Bruce family, and had mentioned some verbal 
and irregular transfers by which it had passed 
into Kennedy possession. He looked into the 
matter and found that, as the man had sur- 
mised, no legal steps had ever been taken and 
that the corner of land on which the church 
stood, comprising a tract of some ten or 
fifteen acres, was, in truth, still covered by 
the Bruce title-deeds ; while the corresponding 
fifteen acres exchanged for it were still included 
in the plat of Broadoaks. The only legal 
reason for recognition of the exchange would 
be found in the fact that two generations 
had suffered it to pass unchallenged and, 
whether or not that would be held to consti- 
tute a title, Redwood was not sufficiently 
learned in the land law of the commonweath 
to determine. For himself, were he in the 
position of representative of old Geoffrey 


182 


BROADOAltS. 


Bruce, he knew that he should make the 
attempt to have the act of his ancestor inval- 
idated. 

The discovery had been made before the 
return of young Geoffrey Bruce to his old 
home. Redwood informed himself as fully as 
possible in regard to the young man’s busi- 
ness affairs and picked up such traditions 
relative to his habits and disposition as were 
current. From the long struggle, the hard 
work and self-denial which had freed the 
old homestead and the name of Bruce from 
the onus of debt he drew conclusions based 
on knowledge of practical men gained in 
other places. A man who had passed ten of 
his most impressionable years on the frontier, 
who had consorted with miners and cow- 
boys, who had turned his hand to almost 
anything from swinging a pick to surveying 
for a railway, must have acquired sufficient 
experience and knowledge of the world to 
have developed recognition of the value of 
money. A practical man, who had roughed 
it among practical men, would undoubtedly 
regard the removal of dead Kennedys, and 


Jbroadoaks. 


183 

dead other people, from Bruce land from a 
rational and non-sentimental standpoint. 
Particularly when there need be no disre- 
spect shown to dead nor living, and much 
benefit might be obtained. With Bruce, 
according to Redwood’s thinking, it would 
be simply lifting a foreign embargo from a 
domestic port. 

The return of the wanderer caused 
Redwood to put aside a half-formed plan of 
opening the matter by letter, and, for a week 
or so, he had been content to watch and 
learn his man. Then had come Bruce’s infatu- 
ation for Rebie Kennedy and the rivalry of 
the two men which put an end to possibility 
of an intimacy between them sufficiently 
close to admit of amicable discussion of 
private personal affairs, so far, at least, as 
Geoffrey Bruce was concerned. 

With Redwood, of course, the dominant 
idea tinctured even his love affair, and he 
could have talked business with his rival, in 
the intervals of their mutual endeavor to 
secure the attention of the young lady, with 
great composure and his usual acumen. 


184 


fcROADOAKS. 


Through the conversation relative to the 
frequency, in the old days, of verbal transfer 
of bits of real estate which had taken place 
the day the party had spent on Old Sachem 
mountain, Redwood had learned that the 
present representatives of both families were 
fully cognizant of the action of their prede- 
cessors. Through an outside party he 
approached Bruce on the subject, setting 
before him what appeared to be the legal 
status of the case, and offering, in event of 
his deciding to reclaim the land, as he had a 
presumptive right to do, to purchase the 
same for a good figure. 

The reply, given in ignorance, of course, of 
Redwood’s identity, was to the effect that 
the property had been so long in possession 
of the Kennedys as to have passed utterly 
beyond Bruce calculation. That, as his 
grandfather had been satisfied with the 
exchange, and his father had, at least, tacitly 
endorsed it he, Geoffrey Bruce, had no inten- 
tion of making any unneighborly stir in the 
matter. As, however, the affair had legal 
aspects which, heretofore, had been ignored, 


BROADOAKS. 


185 


and might in the future give trouble and, 
perhaps, cause litigation, he would, now 
that his attention had been called to it, at 
once take steps to have the transfer put into 
proper shape. The thing would be of inter- 
est and moment to the Kennedys, for on that 
little tract of land was situated their family 
bury ing-gr ound . 

When this communication reached him 
Redwood laid it down on his table, leaded 
back in his chair and deliberately applied to 
the region lying south of Mason & Dixon’s 
line, and to the people who dwell therein, 
language which for bitterness and force 
would have done credit to an ancient 
Israelite. This omnipresent sentiment, crop- 
ping up as it did at all points, was likely to 
prove a terrible rock of stumbling to him. 

Even after many days and much mental 
disturbance he could see no rationality, no 
progress, no anything save egregious folly in 
the Southern position. He was balked, but 
not beaten. It was probable that Bruce 
knew nothing of the supposed presence of 
gold in the spot to which he was so ready to 


MoAftoAi<3. 


186 

relinquish all claim ; or at most he could only 
know it as a legend of his boyhood. Could 
that fact be fully established a change might 
be wrought in his feelings in regard to the 
matter. Redwood had known the sight of 
gold to affect men curiously and bring about 
modifications in thought and action with a 
celerity that was little short of marvelous. 

As he sat on the empty powder can, after 
his interview with the New York syndicate, 
and indulged in unflattering reflections about 
his neighbors, he decided that he must have 
one more round with fortune before he could 
consent to throw up the sponge. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


For a man to accept partial rebuff as per- 
manent discouragement would argue little 
tenacity of purpose, for if he be true lover, 
with his heart set singly on the woman, and 
not doubly, as it were, one half on her and 
the other half on that which seems to be his 
own reflection in her eyes, hope must prove a 
staunch ally to his love. 

It was therefore with no overwhelming 
feeling of dejection that Bruce regarded his 
interview with Rebie. Had she disliked him, 
or even been pronouncedly indifferent, she 
would have decided the matter at once 
instead of requesting time for consideration. 
A fortress which will entertain articles of 
treaty is already on the road to capitulation. 

That which occupied Bruce most was the 
question of his own conduct during the inter- 
val of waiting. Should he remain in the 
neighborhood and avoid going to Broadoaks 
his motives might be misconstrued in many 

187 


188 


SROADOAKS. 


ways. To Rebie he might seem to show 
pique, while to the others he would appear 
neglectful of his old friends — added to which 
considerations amour propre forbade that he 
should produce the impression of having been 
discarded before that disastrous fact should 
overwhelm him. On the other hand if he 
should continue his visits as though nothing 
had occurred it might seem that he wished to 
thrust himself on his sweetheart’s notice, 
that he lacked pluck and patience to leave his 
cause untrammeled in her hands. Bruce 
knew himself too well to suppose that it 
would be possible for him to be near Rebie 
and refrain from, either directly or indirectly, 
making love to her. He was too simple- 
natured a man and too genuinely in love to 
have much thought to give to diplomacy. 
And above all things he wanted to be tender 
and considerate with her, to show her that 
true love must ever mean refuge and protec- 
tion. She had put out her hand to him, trust- 
ing him, and begged that he would be good 
to her, and the young fellow stoutly deter- 
mined that, come what might, there should 


BROADOAKS. 


189 


be no selfish persecution ; he would show him- 
worthy other trust. 

While he debated the point, undecided as to 
his course of action, some letters came rela- 
tive to property which he still owned in the 
West, which gave him an excuse for with- 
drawing, for a few weeks, from the neighbor- 
hood in a manner which would occasion no 
remark. Before his departure he called at 
Broadoaks to explain his mission and men- 
tion the, probable, length of his absence. He 
made no effort to see Rebie alone, nor did he 
betray any of the depression of a baffled 
lover; on the contrary he was as bright, 
cheery and companionable as usual, so that 
the slight feeling of consciousness with which 
Rebie was, at first, oppressed in his presence 
passed utterly away. She was grateful to 
him and, insensibly, her confidence in him 
and feeling of dependence on his care 
increased. When Bernard, who, with the 
insight of sympathy, was fully cognizant of 
the state of the young fellow’s feelings, sug- 
gested that he should write to them during 
his absence she replied to his wistful look 


190 


BROADOAKS. 


with a smile and was conscious of a sudden 
emotion of regret when he bade her farewell. 
Which goes to prove that the policy of unself- 
ishness may after all be the subtlest species of 
diplomacy. 

His going left a gap in their lives, for they 
had learned to accept his presence among 
them as an integral part of their existence. 
About this time, also, Rolfe Kennedy returned 
to his duties in the city, Tom betook himself 
to the seashore, whither the Seldons had gone 
for a month and Redwood, to all seeming, 
became bodily engulfed by his mining opera- 
tions so that, for a brief season, a dead calm 
settled on the old house at Broadoaks. 

To Bernard, with fate fully determined and 
heart free from the systole and diastole of 
sentimental fluctuation, the quiet was not 
ungrateful. She attended to her household 
cares, practiced her music, busied herself with 
an accumulation of dainty sewing which she 
appeared to have on hand, and wrote long 
letters to her lover with a placid acceptance 
of the present and confidence in the future 
which to Rebie appeared enviable. Rebie 


BROADOAKS. 


191 


herself was very ill at ease; restless, and 
dissatisfied with her restlessness; filled with 
uncertainty, and outraged with her lack of 
definite purpose. She liked Geoffrey Bruce 
and disliked Redwood, at least, so she 
informed herself many times a day, striving 
to keep the two facts in their proper rela- 
tions in her consciousness; but do what she 
would she could not dissociate the two men 
so that the thought of the one would stand 
before her uninfluenced by the thought of the 
other. It was as though the shadow from 
two distinct objects, separate in all save 
obedience to a law of nature, lay across each 
other upon her spirit and obscured its vision. 

She watched her sister with speculative 
eyes and one morning suddenly put a ques- 
tion. 

“Bernard, how did you know you cared 
for Rolfe? Please forgive my asking! It 
seems so difficult to determine. How can a 
woman be sure she loves a man well enough 
to give her life into his hands ; to take his life 
into hers? It is all so strange, and the 
responsibility so great.” 


192 


BROADOAKS. 


Bernard was busy at the machine, running 
dainty little tucks in a strip of fine white 
cambric. On the floor beside her was a 
basket heaped with more material and the 
bed was littered with trimmings of various 
sorts. She arrested the motion of the 
machine and glanced quickly at her sister, 
then, instinctively perceiving something of 
the trouble of her mind, looked away again 
while she answered : 

“There was never any doubt. I knew 
it as one recognizes the presence of light 
and sunshine, by restless yearning if it 
should seem for an instant withdrawn and 
glad contentment in its renewal. When the 
sunrise of her spirit dawns for a woman there 
is never any question. Her heart turns and 
inclines itself as did the bodies of the old sun- 
worshipers when their god arose.” 

She gazed through the open window, across 
the shaded green of the lawn, to the quiet 
river and the blue of the hills beyond. Her 
eyes were brooding and introspective, her 
hand stroked the fabric under it with a caress- 
ing touch and her lips curved into a smile like 


BROADOAKS. 


193 


that of a woman who looks on the face of 
one beloved. 

Rebie let her hands, also filled with pretty 
sewing, fall into her lap with a forlorn little 
movement. 

“Suppose when one looks steadily at an 
object another object appears beside it, like 
the little false planet that torments astrono- 
mers when the lens are wrongly focused. 
How is one to know which is the true lumin- 
ary and which the optical delusion? ” 

“Wait,” counseled Bernard, “w^ait, and try 
to adjust the focus. That can do no harm, 
and to be careful is a woman’s right. Sooner 
or later true love reveals itself, and then it is 
as the coming of a mighty king; the woman’s 
heart knows its master and rejoices in its 
subjugation. Anything short of this is coun- 
terfeit, and with it no rational creature will 
be satisfied.” 

Bernard spoke with the emphasis of one 
convinced of the enduring truth of her posi- 
tion. She had followed Rebie’s lead and 
employed metaphor because she had intui- 
tively perceived that her sister had not yet 
13 


194 


BROADOAKS. 


arrived at the stage in which a woman 
yearns to bestow her confidence, and she knew 
that to give the help and counsel indirectly 
solicited without infringing on reserve would 
be most grateful. To pure and thorough 
natures love is a thing too sacred to be 
lightly dealt with. It is a presence into which 
the soul must enter with uncovered head, and 
feet freed from the sandals of worldliness. 

The matter was dropped between the sis- 
ters; but later Bernard remarked to her 
father that Rebie seemed terribly out of sorts, 
like a person who had lost something and did 
not know how or where to begin her search 
for it. It was pitiful ! 

“If it’s her heart I hope it may be in Geoff 
Bruce’s possession,” the father observed. 
“She misses the lad, I expect, and no wonder. 
He’s a fine lad — a good straightforward lad, 
and his notions are those of the old school. 
He came to me one day and frankly told me 
the state of his mind toward Rebie and asked 
my permission to win her if he could. He 
said it didn’t seem right to frequent my 
house in the way he was doing without let- 


BROADOAKS. 


195 


ting me know his object. That sort of feeling 
is growing rare among young men I notice. 
Its pretty much ‘he shall take who has the 
power, and he shall keep who can,’ in these 
days. The grace and deference of the old 
way struck me anew, and my liking for the 
boy was clinched by his observance of it. It’s 
what his father would have done. Geoff’s a 
chip of the old block.” 

Colonel Kennedy shared the universal 
elderly opinion that in most essentials of con- 
duct his own generation occupied the crest of 
a wave in the movement of life. To find a 
custom of the past regarded by a man of the 
present pleased him as any ratification of 
one’s own opinion always pleases. 

“But,” objected Bernard, “there is, or may 
be, another man in the case. Mr. Redwood 
has been paying Rebie a good deal of atten- 
tion.” 

“Not that!” Colonel Kennedy hastily 
interrupted. “My little girl would never 
eive her heart to a man like that ! Redwood 

O 

is a stranger among us — his feelings, traditions 
and modes of thought are totally alien from 


196 


BROADOAKS. 


ours. He’d hurt her all around continually 
and never know that he’d done it. There is 
such a thing as natural affinity, I reckon. 
Like should stick to like.” 

“It generally does,” Bernard observed 
astutely, “so if it should turn out that Rebie 
and Mr. Redwood care for each other we will 
have to admit affinity — individual, if not 
hereditary. He ’s a very clever man ; and the 
handsomest blond I have ever seen.” 

“He’s got eyes mottled like a snake’s 
skin,” the colonel growled, in a tone that 
seemed to hold Redwood responsible for his 
visual imperfection, “ and they ’ve got a look 
in them, at times, as hard as iron. His hair 
grows straight from the scalp like the hair of 
an ape, and he could n’t part it in an even line 
to save his life. Redwood’s got more intel- 
lect than he’s got feeling, by a long shot, 
Bernard, and the sort of will that overrides 
obstacles like a cavalry charge. A flower 
had just as well try to draw sustenance from 
a rock as an emotional woman look for com- 
prehension from a man like Redwood.” 


BROADOAKS. 


197 


Bernard laughed. “Come, father, that 
isn’t fair, ” she said; “if a man maybe held 
irresponsible for anything on earth it must 
be for the color of his eyes and the way his 
hair grows.” 

The tap of Colonel Kennedy’s crutches as he 
walked away had an impatient sound. He 
had set his heart on a match between his 
daughter and the son of his old friend and, in 
spite of his strictures on Redwood’s love of 
dominion, the old soldier had mighty little 
appetite for being crossed himself. 


CHAPTER XV. 

One afternoon, about two weeks after 
Aunt Nancy’s burial, and the departure of 
Geoffrey Bruce, Crummie came around the 
corner of the house to the place where Rebie 
sat on a little bench feeding a brood of 
chickens preparatory to housing them for the 
night, and dropped down' on the grass near 
her. 

“Miss Rebie,” he commenced, in an insinu- 
ating tone, thrusting his bare toes out 
toward the bristling mother of the brood 
and then jerking them back in a manner pro- 
vocative of onslaught, “Count, he in de 
stable, an’ ole Morgan dar, too.” 

Rebie glanced up interrogatively. 

“Sun ain’t nigh down yit,” the boy con- 
tinued. “He way up yonder— mos’ an’ hour 
high. It be long time befo’ dark.” 

Rebie picked up a silver mug from the 
ground and poured water into the empty 
sardine box which served for a chicken 

198 


BROADOAKS. 


199 


trough. The chicks came to it and daintily 
dipped in their beaks. A sparrow flew down 
from a tree close by and drank with them. 

“It one mighty pretty evenin’ fur a ride,” 
insinuated Crum, “an’ dat horse, he jus’ 
nat’ely spilin’ to git out’n de stable. Un’k 
Peyton say I kin take ole Morgan to go arter 
de cows dey done strayed so fur. Dat big 
wind las’ night bio wed de fence down over 
aginst Eagle’s Nes’ an’ we-all’s mean ole cows 
done foun’ it out an’ gone visitin’. Mammy 
say I got to go arter ’em. Do n’t you want 
to go ’long wid me ? ” 

The proposal was so unusual that Rebie 
was surprised. She often took the boy with 
her on her rides, but the suggestion generally 
emanated from her. Eagle’s Nest was the 
name of the Kennedy homestead which 
Redwood had rented for the winter months. 
He occupied it still, the rightful owner hav- 
ing decided to take his family to the Springs 
for the summer. Rebie had no thought of 
Redwood in the matter, indeed she supposed 
him still in New York, for since his return he 
had not called at Broadoaks. She suspected 


200 


BROADOAKS. 


Crum, however, of other motives than disin- 
terested desire to promote her enjoyment. 

“What do you want me to go for, Crum ? ” 
she questioned. “I’m not going to do your 
work for you.” 

“Ne’er mind ’bout dat,” the boy grinned. 
“I kin drive de cows myse’f — dat ain’t 
nothin.’ I want you fur comp’ny, Miss Rebie. 
I ’feared!” 

“Afraid of what?” 

“Ha’rnts.” 

“What!” 

“Ghos’es! Sperets — dem things whar 
come out’n de graveyard. Folks say dey 
gittin’ mighty rank ’bout dem woods we-all 
got to go fru. Say anybody kin jump up 
ghos’es, same as rabbits, whar want to, 
arter sundown an’ befo’ day in de mornin’. 
Dem ole ha’rnts jus’ as sociable! It make 
gooseflesh bu’st out jus’ to study ’bout how 
foolish dey is! ” 

“How foolish you are, you better say,” 
Rebie retorted. “Who’s been telling you such 
ridiculous and untrue stories? ” 


BROADOAKS. 


201 


“Eve’ybody. Dey ain’t no story, Miss 
Rebie. Dey’s de befo’ Gawd- A ’mighty gospel 
truf! You ax Wallis! Wallis been tellin’ 
we-all ha’rnts was buttin’ ’bout in dem 
graveyard woods, same as bats in a barn, 
fur nigh three mont’s an’ wouldn’t nobody 
b’leve him. Say ’twas jus’ Wallis’ foolish- 
ness — dat he pintly do git skeered quick! — 
mos’ liable to run frum he own shadow in de 
daytime. Wallis say ne’er mind, t’other 
folks gwine git skeered pres’ny.” 

“What did Wallis see?’’ 

The young lady’s voice was mocking. 
The statements of Jane’s eldest son must, she 
knew, be taken with allowance. 

“Wallis say how he an’ one n’other man 
was out coon huntin’ ’long in de spring an’ 
ole Boler trail one coon tho’ de woods close 
by de ole church. Wallis say jus’ as dey got 
right ’ginst de church, not thinkin’ ’bout no 
ghos’es, nor nothin’ ’cepten de coon — all de 
windows in de church glowed out in a light 
an’ somethin’ inside started a fuss, like folks 
gittin’ happy with religion. Wallis an’ 
t’other fellow took out in a run like patter- 


202 


BROADOAKS. 


rollers was arter ’em. Dey never draw’d 
breath good ’t well dey got to A’nt Nancy 
house an’ shot de door. Un’k Patrick was 
settin’ in de ehimbly cornder an’ he jus’ lari 
at dem boys— he larf an’ he giggle! — say 
dem two de skeeriest niggers he been see 
sence freedom come out. Ne’er mind! — dat 
all Wallis say — ne’er mind! Un’k Patrick, 
he done quit larfin’ now.” 

He regarded the young lady gravely and, 
seeing that she was paying attention, pro- 
ceeded with his story. 

“Arter dat Un’k Patrick come by de grave- 
yard one time hisse’f an’ see one ole ha’rnt 
standin’ by one dem dar graves whar got 
flat rocks over ’em. Un’k Patrick say he 
war n’t skeered none hardly, an’ de moon 
was shinin’ an’ he stood dar an’ watched. 
Say ole ha’rnt look like he spit on his hands 
an’ retch over an’ shove de rock ; an’ de rock 
it rolled away like ’t war n’t nothin’ but a 
sheet o’ paper, an’ de ghos’ he went right 
smack down in de grave an’ draw’d de rock 
over him agin.” 

Rebie laughed. 


BROADOAKS. 


203 


“The shadows played tricks on him,” she 
said; “it is the way with shadows.” 

“No ’m,” the boy persisted, “ ’twarn’t noth- 
in’ played no trick. Dar ain’t no foolin’ ’bout 
it. Heseeddat speret plain as you kin see dat 
speckled pullet. Some white mens bin see it 
sence den ! ” 

This statement was supplemented in a tone 
which challenged further disbelief. Crum felt 
his position strengthened by it. 

“Who?” 

“Dem Kitchens. Dey was cornin’ home 
night befo’ las’, kase dey done make up de 
difence good enuf to fiddle togudder agin, 
an’ dey had been playin’ fur ’em to dance by 
down at ole man Hunley’s bigges’ gal’s wed- 
din’. It was jus’ befo’ day-break an’ dem 
men was walkin’ wid a lightwood knot 
burnin’ ’count o’ de woods bein’ lonesome. 
Whenst dey got ’ginst de ole church dey seed 
a light shinin’ out de windows same as 
Wallis done. Dey war n’t ’fear’d an’ dey 
went inside de graveyard an’ Jerry, he 
tried de church door. ’Twas fastened like 
it always do be, an’ de light was shinin’ fru 


204 


BROADOAKS. 


de chinks. Luke, he’s light an’ spindlin’ an’ 
he got Jerry to give him a leg an’ dumb up 
to one de windows — ” The boy paused and 
drew in his breath and sent it out again in a 
long sigh : his eyes dilated. 

“What did he see?” demanded Rebie, her 
interest deep, despite her incredulity. 

“He seed,” Crummie answered, his voice 
very impressive, “one ole ha’rnt gwine up de 
pulpit steps, sorter easy an’ slow, wid what 
look like one little baby coffin in his arms. 
Luke couldn’t see no lamp, nor nothin’ like a 
can’el, nor no lightwood knot nowhar; but 
de light was shinin’ up out de pulpit same as 
out’n a tar-kiln a-fire. Luke Kitchen ’low 
’twar jus’ awful, an’ whenst de speret sorter 
hi’st up de little coffin like he was aimin’ to 
slam it down in de fire, Luke, he jus’ holler 
out ‘ Good Gawd A’ mighty!' — loud; jus’ 
like dat. Den he drapped back on Jerry an’ 
bof’ of ’em tumbled on de groun’. Whilst 
dey was busy untanglin’ demselves an’ fixin’ 
to run away de light inside de church went 
out an’ dar come a mighty big fuss, like de 
roof had done squelsh in, an’ dem men jus’ lit 


BROADOAKS. 


205 


out — lippity-click — layin’ hoofs to de groun’, 
same as two horses gallopin’ 

Rebie was immensely amused. She could 
readily account for the vision beheld by the 
two fiddlers. Weddings are generally con- 
vivial occasions, and old Hudson Hunley, a 
man living back among the laurel brakes, 
had, for years, been suspected of illicit prac- 
tices by moonlight. He owned a bit of land 
with an orchard on it and always appeared 
to have money to spend, although he never 
glutted the local market with dried fruit, and 
had no visible source of income. A festivity 
at old Hunley ’s would, Rebie thought, put 
men in a condition to see most anything in 
the way of spirits. As to the tales the 
negroes told she attached no importance to 
them; any more than she had always done 
to her Mammy’s superstitions, or the stories 
of witches who took off their skins and rode 
broomsticks at night, of animals who talked 
and schemed, and of serpents who milked the 
cows and finally turned into negro women, 
with which her imagination had been regaled 
in childhood. According to the colored seers 


206 


BROADOAKS. 


every graveyard in the country was sur- 
rounded by a cordon of ghosts of great activ- 
ity and unlimited resources. 

She signified her willingness to Crum to act 
as his protector and went indoors to put on 
her habit w hile he saddled her horse. When 
Count was brought around she was waiting 
at the gate and put up her hand to her 
favorite’s neck to caress him before she 
mounted. 

“Why did you put on the old saddle, 
Crum ? ” vshe inquired, noticing that the girth 
looked insecure. 

“Couldn’t find no y’uther,” the bov 
explained. “Miss Bernard, she got de keys in 
her pocket an’ she gone down to de fish pond 
wid Mars Julian. Dat all right!” as Rebie 
gave the saddle a shake, “ it ain’t gwine come 
loose. I done tie it strong wid a piece o’ 
rope.” 

He held the horse by the bit until Rebie 
mounted and then scrambled on his own 
steed, a heavy looking plow nag accoutred 
with a blind bridle. 


BROADOAKS. 


207 


When they neared the church Crum was for 
increasing the speed; but Rebie, bidding him 
go on if he were afraid, turned aside and rode 
up to the wall of the enclosure. The place 
looked peaceful and undisturbed, a very quiet 
haven into which an old hulk might drift 
and go to pieces after weary buffeting with 
the waves of life. The association, even in 
imagination, of nocturnal perturbation with 
so calm a spot seemed little short of profa- 
nation. 

The way led them past the house at Eagle’s 
Nest, for the perfidious quadrupeds of which 
they were in search had strayed far afield. It 
was a square brick building with a stone 
portico, substantial, angular, and shame- 
lessly devoid of beauty. The road led along 
just outside the yard fence and Rebie glanced 
across at the house, noticing, as she did so, 
that the parlor windows were open and that 
Redwood was sitting on the porch. He took 
off his hat and rose from his chair with the 
evident intention of coming to the gate to 
speak to her should she evince the faintest 
disposition to pause. Rebie returned his 


208 


BROADOAKS. 


greeting and, as she did so, unconsciously 
threw most of her weight on the stirrup side 
of the saddle ; a thing she had been careful to 
avoid because of the infirmity of her girth. 
As luck would have it the very instant she 
had sacrificed equilibrium to courtesy her 
horse got his foot in a hole and stumbled; 
the rope in which Crummie had placed his 
trust proved no better than rotten hemp, and 
Rebie found herself lying in a heap in the mid- 
dle of the road with her horse, startled and 
bewildered, gazing at her from the extreme 
limit of the bridle, which she still held in her 
hand. 

Almost before she could realize the disaster, 
Redwood had dashed to the rescue and lifted 
her to her feet, and was hurrying out inquiries 
in an anxious voice. Rebie, astonished and 
shaken, but not in the least hurt, noticed that 
his face was pale, and it struck her as a 
curious coincidence that she should have 
horseback adventures — or rather misadven- 
tures, with both her lovers. She laughed his 
anxiety lightly away. 


BROADOAKS. 


209 


“I’m not in the least hurt,” she declared. 
“Not even a bruise or scratch on which to 
establish a claim for sympathy. It was an 
utterly safe and ignominious tumble. Ber- 
nard had my saddle locked up and was away 
with father somewhere on the plantation 
with the key in her pocket. Crum cobbled 
up this one with rope, and the result you 
have witnessed. Indeed, I’m quite sound 
in wind and limb,” observing that he still 
regarded her anxiously. “I’m not even hys- 
terical; only ragged and abominably dirty.” 
She glanced smilingly down at her dust cov- 
ered habit and thrust the toe of her boot 
through a gaping rent. 

Redwood’s hand sought the lapel of his 
coat with a man’s instinctive gesture when a 
pin appears the thing adequate to meet the 
occasion. The search, as usual, proved abor- 
tive. Rebie laughed. 

“Come up to the house,” he suggested, 
“and I’ll get you a needle and thread, and 
dust you down a bit. Were you going any- 
where in particular ? ” He held open the gate 
for her.* 

14 


210 


BROADOAKS. 


Rebie explained to him that she was only 
taking a ride, and it was arranged between 
them that Crum should be despatched on his 
errand while Redwood, after fitting the sad- 
dle with another girth, should himself escort 
the young lady home. 

The Eagle’s Nest parlor was a handsome 
room, very lofty in the pitch and wainscoted 
from floor to ceiling. From the dark back- 
ground of the woodwork the old portraits, 
in heavy frames of faded gilding, stood out 
in relief; the ladies in short waisted white 
gowns, with high puffed .sleeves, or with lace 
kerchiefs demurely folded over full, velvet cov- 
ered busts ; and the men, most of them, with 
strangulating stocks and fancy waistcoats. 
The old spindle-legged piano was covered 
with a dark red cover wrought gloriously 
with a border of needlework of the sort on 
which a past generation wasted much time 
and eyesight. Other specimens of the same 
work decorated ottomans and firescreens and 
spoke volumes for the industry of dead and 
gone Kennedy s. On the mantel were old 
time ornaments, candelabra with crystal 


BROADOAKS. 


211 


pendants and quaint vases of Wedgewood 
and Dresden wares. The place had a restful 
look, as though, having held its individuality 
through generations of change it might con- 
tinue to hold it until time itself should cease. 
The influence of the room suggested perma- 
nence. 

Rebie was familiar with the place and, as 
she entered, glanced around with much the 
same affection in her look as she was wont 
to bestow on the old rooms at Broadoaks. 
There was a family likeness in all the Ken- 
nedy homesteads. While Redwood went for 
the promised needle and thread, she noted the 
infinitesimal changes which the unguarded 
occupancy of a man had produced. There 
were newspapers littered about, and some 
books on mineralogy which she had never 
seen before, but no cigars nor pipes, and no 
odor of stale tobacco about the place. Red- 
wood was a smoker, she knew, and it 
pleased her to think that he should have 
respected the room which had always been 
the peculiar charge of ladies. The truth of 
the matter was, however, that Redwood pre- 


212 


BROADOAKS. 


ferred his cigar in the open air in summer, 
and furthermore had only moved a few of his 
possessions into the parlor the day before, 
because it chanced to be the coolest room in 
the house. Usually he sat, or worked in a 
smaller room across the hall; when he was 
not at his office at the mine. 

The ornaments had been removed from the 
marble-topped center-table and the table 
itself covered with a thick linen carriage-robe 
and pushed in front of one of the tall, narrow 
windows. The light fell full upon a hand- 
some microscope on a brass stand, an assort- 
ment of chemical apparatus, a small collec- 
tion of specimens of minerals and a little 
heap of sandy, gravelly soil on a fragment of 
newspaper. 

Redwood returned with a dainty little 
sewing case, of the sort prevalent at fancy 
fairs, and a large and business-like looking 
whisk-broom. He made Rebie stand up and 
brushed her habit in a masterly and scientific 
manner. Then he would have given her a 
cordial, protesting that her nerves must have 
received a shock and that she must submit to 


BROADOAKS. 


213 


be prescribed for. He even brought out a 
dainty little jug of exquisite Bohemian glass, 
and a fairy-like cup that resembled a delicate 
rose-colored jewel. But Rebie would have 
none of it, vowing that it would blister her 
throat and that she had sustained no shock 
at all. She took the little jug in her hands, 
however, and expatiated on its beauty and 
shook it so that the flakes of gold quivered 
and floated in the crystal fluid like star-dust 
in ether. 

“How beautiful these things are,” she said, 
and held the little cup to the light, turning it 
to enjoy the prismatic hues struck out by the 
sun’s rays, and reveling in the perfection of its 
color with the abandonment of an artist. 
“Tell me of them. I know so little of the 
countries from which they come.” She 
glanced at him with eyes filled with interest. 

Then, exhilarated by the fact of having her 
alone with him, under his own roof, as it 
were, and moved also by a deep purpose, 
Redwood talked as he had never talked 
before, as, in all probability, he could never 
talk again. In language that glowed with 


214 


BROADOAKS. 


color and light, with imagery at once power- 
ful and picturesque, he painted for her scenes 
of richness and beauty which, for the 
moment, caused the primitive life she had led 
amid her mountains to shrivel into angular 
and limited outlines. As with the wand of 
an enchanter he caused her to behold the 
glory and delights of wealth, the beauty, the 
culture ; the development possible from 
travel, from association with the rich and 
cultivated of all lands, from the boundless 
opportunities which money alone can com- 
mand. He pictured for her visions of 
enchantment woven of material delights, of 
form, of sound, of color, of all that can 
stimulate the imagination, or appeal to the 
senses, worthy of a lotus-eater’s dream of 
paradise. In one word, he showed her the 
halls of Eblis through eyes, as yet, unopened 
to the burning hearts which those that dwell 
therein must bear forever in their bosoms. 

Rebie leaned forward in her chair and 
listened; her hands lay together in her lap, 
the needle motionless, the rent forgotten; 
her eyes dilated, her lips were parted, her 


BROADOAKS. 


215 


breath came quickly. A part of her nature 
heretofore unstirred was responding to 
Redwood’s touch as an instrument responds 
to the hand of a master. These visions of a 
fuller, freer, more exciting existence than she 
had ever pictured to herself, even in day- 
dreams, thrilled her imagination and caused 
her nerves to quiver like the action of a 
powerful drug. 

And the man before her saw it and exulted 
and wove his spells around her fancy with 
the subtlety of a magician. He would be her 
master, he proudly told himself. When he 
could come to her and say, “Come with me 
and behold the world and the wonders 
thereof,” when he could lay chains of gold on 
the delicate wrists and encircle the white 
throat and shining hair with ropes and 
crowns of jewels, she would place her hands 
in his and follow him through life, till death. 
This last hour’s insight into the weaknesses 
of her nature had given him his que; had 
showed him afresh the power and the might 
of gold. 


216 


BROADOAKS. 


The sun was sinking fast ; quivering, hori- 
zontal rays fell across the lawn and through 
the open window, touching the two faces, 
brightening the aureole of Redwood’s hair 
until it glittered like burnished gold, and 
striking answering rays from the jewel on his 
breast and from the rings on the girl’s still 
hands. A long finger of light fell athwart 
the table and seemed to point to the heap of 
ore and gravel. Redwood turned to it and, 
leaning over, raised a lump of grayish- white 
rock, seamed and flecked with tiny threads 
and points of metal, and handed it to her. 

“There is the magician’s wand,” he said, 
slowly. “ That for us also can open the way 
to all the beauty and enjoyment of which 
this life is capable. That is the secret of 
power, for before it all men bend as the genii 
of the Eastern legends bend before the spell 
of the magi.” 

Rebie turned the bit of quartz in her hands 
and looked up at him. “It is — ” she hesi- 
tated and caught her breath. 

“Gold.” 


BROADOAKS. 


217 


He moved nearer; his eyes holding her 
eyes with strange domination ; in them 
burned a light which the girl felt communi- 
cating itself to her own. She shivered, and 
then, with a swift sense of danger, rose has- 
tily to her feet and turned from him with 
some half inarticulate exclamation about the 
lateness of the hour. 

Redwood pulled himself together, checking 
the words which were trembling on his lips. 
Under the stress of excitement, the influence 
of her presence, he had been near committing 
a serious indiscretion. He had no wish to 
speak just yet. There would be time enough 
for that when he should have carried his 
point about the gold. In the meantime he 
was satisfied with that which he considered 
the success of his experiment. He would 
bide his time. 

During the homeward ride there was but 
little said. Each felt that, in some mys- 
terious way, they had passed through an 
ordeal, and that, for all time, their relations 
toward each other were changed. When 
Redwood lifted her from her horse at the 


218 


bitOAbOA&S. 


Broadoaks gate Rebie could have truthfully 
affirmed that, to outward seeming, his man- 
ner of performing the service was the same 
that it had ever been — yet, there was that in 
his touch, his look, his very atmosphere 
which stirred and troubled her nature to its 
nether depths, as water is troubled by the 
falling into it of a heavy substance. 

She leaned on the gate and watched him as 
he rode away in the gathering twilight. 
There had been no question between them of 
his coming in: neither wished it. When his 
tall figure had been swallowed in the gloom, 
and even the sound of his horse’s hoofs dead- 
ened by distance, she turned and walked 
slowly to the house, her mind working along 
unfamiliar lines. 

Bernard was singing to her father ; the air 
and even the words floated out distinctly to 
where Rebie stood on the porch steps: 

“My love is young and fair, 

My love has golden hair, 

And eyes so blue, and heart so true 
That none with her compare — 

So what care I — 

Though death be nigh, 

I’ll fight for love, or die.” 


fcROADOAKS. 


219 


The girl listened, with her head bent to the 
sound. And over her mood there gradually 
crept a change such as takes place when 
swamp vapors are lifted and dispelled by a 
southwest wind. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


“Yes, sir! That thar is my notion ’bout 
the matter. ’Tis, for a fact,” and Luke 
Kitchen brought his clenched fist down into 
the hand which rested, palm upward, on his 
knee with a resounding thwack. “You 
can’t git buckle an’ tongue to meet under 
n ’ ary n’ other strain. Ghos’es! Shucks! Who 
b’leves in sech durned foolishness?” His 
tone was indicative of limitless contempt. 

“Heap o’ folks does. You war n’t so 
blamed fur off frum b’levin’ it yerse’f night 
afore las’. You run like you had cornsid’rble 
faith.” 

Jerry turned his quid in his cheek and 
reached down for a stick to whittle. The 
brothers were seated on a beam which had 
been cast aside from some building, and la} r 
near the engine-house of the Lone Jack mine. 
It was warped and cracked by the sun and 
Luke, following his brother’s example, took 
out his knife and cut from the edge of it a 


BROADOAKS. 


221 


long sliver of wood which he reduced to tiny 
shavings as he talked. The men took a little 
spell at mining, now and then ; it diversified 
farming and was more productive of ready 
money. It was the dinner-hour and the 
hands who worked above ground, and a few 
who were employed near the mouth of the 
shaft had finished eating and were lounging 
about, smoking and chatting until the signal 
should be given to resume work. The men 
who worked in the galleries took their meals 
down with them and did not come up but 
once in the twenty-four hours ; it saved time 
and trouble. 

Near the entrance to the shaft there was 
quite a village of shanties, a store, and the 
huge building in which was the engine and 
the places for sorting the ore and getting it 
ready for the stamping-mill. In one corner 
of this building was Redwood’s office, and 
near it lay the beam whereon the men sat. 
Near the office window, but hidden from the 
men by the angle of the house, an empty 
packing box had been turned over to form a 
seat. On it a heavy looking negro, with 


222 


BROADOAKS. 


powerful shoulders, aud a face like an image 
roughly outlined with the fingers in a lump 
of tar, had placed himself with his dinner 
pail beside him. 

The Kitchen brothers looked like twins, 
although there was in reality several years 
difference in their ages. They had the Same 
grizzled brown hair, worn long — the same 
blue eyes, the same scraggy beards and 
the same obstinate high-tempered expres- 
sion. Standing, they were of different 
build, Jerry, the elder, being heavier and 
more muscular; but sitting, as they were 
now, slouched forward with their elbows on 
their knees the likeness between them was 
marvelous. They were discussing an adven- 
ture which had befallen them a night or so 
before, and differed as usual. 

“You war powerful flustrated,” Jerry per- 
sisted, keeping the ma tter in a light he fancied 
likely to be aggravating. “You lowed befo’ 
Gawd an’ ther hebbenly host o’ cherikins 
thet you hilt it fur a ha’rnt.” 

He laughed; a short dry chuckle, reminis- 
cent of delight in his companion’s terror. 


BROADOAKS. 


223 


Luke echoed it; but with an inflection that 
indicated a different object of derision. 

“You war tremenjous sheered yerse’f,” he 
declared, still grinning. “An’ you hadn’t no 
excuse n’other, not havin’ seed what I seen. 
You run like a plumb horse-racer. You did, 
fur a fact.” 

“Long o’ bein’ nigh mashed an’ pounded 
flat’n a pan-cake by you settlin’ down ’pon 
top o’ me like a sack o’ meal on a mill flo’. 
It shook up my thinkin’ machine so bad thet 
I jus’ made out to follow on your trail like 
one fool sheep follows another.” 

Luke snickered. 

“You didn’t run like you was mashed none 
to hurt,” he observed. “An’ frum ther time 
you made an’ the rate you traveled I’d hev 
said yer thinkin’ machine was ekal to keepin’ 
yer legs in motion. Looked to be workin’ 
toler’ble peart ! An’ you hadn’t seed nothin’ 
n’other.” 

Since Jerry’s fright had been purely vicari- 
ous Luke had him on the hip and he knew it. 
The adventure altogether had given Luke an 
ascendency by which he was not slow to 


224 


BROADOAKS. 


profit. Jerry, not having beheld the singular 
scene presented by the interior of the church 
had been obliged to accept his brother’s 
description of it which, of course, placed him 
at a disadvantage. 

“Shucks I ” 

The tone was intended to relegate both the 
sight and him w<ho had gazed thereon to the 
limbo of an unutterable scorn. Luke, being 
hardened to such demonstrations, as well as 
practiced in them, pursued his own line of 
thought uninfluenced by the fraternal atti- 
tude. 

“No, sir! I hev been a perfessin’ member 
o’ ther Method ’y persuasion fur nigh fifteen 
ye’r an’ I’ve seed a heap o’ devilments in my 
time by day an' night; but I alius know’d 
’em fur human devilments an’ I don’t b’leve 
thars no y’uther sort ’pon this y ’earth. In 
ther Scripter it air sot down fur a p’nt- 
blank fact that ther dead shall be raised at 
ther judgment day, an’ thar ain’t n’ary word 
said ’bout thar gittin’ up no sooner. N’ other 
I don’t believe they does. Ther time is sot 
apart, an’ ther dead air hilt down to it no 




DARK HAND STOLE DOWNWARD FOR THE SPADE. — Page 251 





BROADOAKS. 


225 


matter how servidgerous they gits along o’ 
bein’ cramped layin’ so long. Thar ain’t no 
pardonin’ out, nor breakin’ jail afore ther 
term’s served, to my notion.” 

“ Who war thet you say you seed over yon- 
der at Broadoaks church night afore las’, ef 
’t war n’t a ha’rnt ? ” Jerry demanded. 

“ ’T war a man — same as we-all.” 

“ How you make thet out ? ” 

“Bekase I been figgerin’ it out in my 
thinker ever sence I shuck off ther notion o’ 
its bein’ a ghos’, which I wouldn’t er took 
up with if I hadn’t been frolicin’ an’ got my 
religion overlaid with eatin’an’ drinkin’. He 
war a broad-shouldered fellow in a white 
shirt an’ his gallus buckles shined in ther 
light. I seed ’em plain as ever I seed my own 
whenst I’ve hitched ’em over my own 
shoulders a-holdin’ of my breeches up whilst 
I done it.” 

The negro had poured some cold coffee 
from a bottle into the top of his tin bucket 
and was lifting it to his mouth. He paused, 
and bent forward, listening : the coffee drib- 
bled through the little slit in the top, where a 
15 


226 


BROADOAKS. 


ring had once been soldered on, and the 
drops fell, one by one, down on his knees. 

“What about thet thar light in ther pulpit 
you ’lowed were the blaze o’ hell-fire? An’ 
ther little baby coffin ther ha’rnt war 
a-handlin’ so brash? ” 

“Mout er been a lamp, or a lantern sot 
inside, on ther pulpit flo’. And ther baby 
coffin — fur ther thing didn’t look like nothin’ 
else, ’ceptin’ maybe a fiddle case — thet thar 
mout er been some sort o’, long box, or ham- 
per. I ain’t had time to figger it all out, but 
a natchel born fool would know a ha’rnt 
couldn’t tote no box! ” 

“I dunno how he’d know so smart if he 
hadn’t never seed no ha’rnt,” objected Jerry, 
making an unfair double. “’Tain’t sensible 
to lay down ther law p’int-blank ’bout what 
a ha’rnt kin do, an’ what’s bevant his power 
’twell you git acquainted with a ha’rnt an’ 
larn his motions.” 

Luke was provoked; but he knew his 
brother’s spirit and could gauge its contrari- 
ness by his own. He had a theory to 
develop, and the time for the signal to resume 


BROADOAKS. 


227 


work was close at hand, so he could not 
afford to be touchy. He had heard a bit of 
news which had set him thinking and put- 
ting two and two together. 

“Ever see ther new doctor chap whar set- 
tled in Memnon las’ winter?” he abruptly 
demanded. 

“No. What of it? ” 

“Folks say he’s turrible severe — don’t think 
no more o’ cutin’ up a fellow to see if his 
insides air out o’ gear or in, ’en what we-all 
would o’ slicin’ up a hog at killin’ time. 
He’s thet keen arter his trade thet he’ll root 
corpses out’n thar graves, arter ther dirt 
have been trompled, an’ ther calkerlation 
made thet they air safe ’twell jedgment day 
anyhow, ef he takes a notion they’ve slipped 
out’n this world by a way thet’s onbe- 
knownst to him. I p’intly do de spise to see a 
man so damned meddlesome! ” 

“Look like a man have got a right to die 
any wav he kin, ’thout no odds bein’ took.” 
Jerry volunteered the remark in a reflective 
tone. 


228 


BROADOAKS. 


“ Does so,” acquiesced Luke. “ But this here 
young fellow won’t agree to it. They say he 
hev got some pore creeter’s bones a-settin’ up 
in ther cornder o’ thet thar office o’ his’n 
a-grinnin’, an’ a-shakin’ of its legs in every 
puff o’ wind like it ’twer a-back-steppin’ ter 
music. An’ thet thar pore creeter ’lowed 
whenst he laid them bones down in ther 
groun’ thet thar they’d rest ’twell ther horn 
bio wed an’ judgment day broke over ther 
mountains. An’ all his relations an’ his 
friends ’lowed ther same thing whenst they 
was a-w ailin’ an’ a-weepin’ o’ briny tears, 
an’ a-pattin’ down ther dirt on him with 
thar shovels. An’ thar he be now a-grinnin’, 
an’ a-back-steppin’ in that thar doctor’s 
office. It’s an’ everlastin’, dog-goned scan- 
dal ! That ’s what ’t is ! ” 

His tone was a curiously graded mixture of 
pity and indignation. He took a dingy cot- 
ton rag out of his hat and wiped his forehead 
and his fore-arms. The sun was at the zenith 
and the day was hot. When he had replaced 
the rag he resumed : 


BROADOAKS. 


229 


“Thet thar leetle gal baby o’ Steve Fletch- 
er’s whar died week afore las’ — folks say ther 
leetle creeter went mighty cur’ous. Look like 
she war conjured, or somethin’. All ther 
wimmen-folks frum fur an’ nigh tried thar 
hands doctorin’ her, an’ done ther best they 
know’d, an’ ther best thar fam’lys know’d 
plumb back to thar great grandmammies. 
’T war n’t no use. Ther leetle thing — she war 
a pretty little thing — war took. An’ they 
say thet they hadn’t even put her in ther 
coffin afore this durned meddlin’ fool o’ a doc- 
tor come thar to ther house o’ mournin’ an’ 
wanted to hold what he called a ‘mortal 
zamination’, or some y’other sort o’ devil- 
ment, jus’ to find out what kilt her. Like 
what dif’ence on God-A’mighty’s y’earth it 
could make to them thar mourners how 
death struck arter ther blow were hit home ! 
Whenst ther word war named amongst ’em 
Steve retched up over ther door an’ took his 
rifle out’n ther hooks an’ jus’ dar'd any man 
to lay so much as a finger on his baby.” 

“Steve would ’r gin him a center shot, I 
reckon,” commented Jerry. “He’s a rare 


230 


BROADOAKS. 


good’un with a rifle whenst his monkey ain’t 
up — when t’is he ’s a rattler, an’ don’t you 
forgit it! ’T would er served thet thar ser- 
vidgerous houn’ right, too ! A fellow whar’s 
got ther heart to aim to run a knife into a 
dead baby— an’ a gal baby! — air a hard 
enough case to y’earn a piece o’ rope an’ a 
hickory limb afore he gits through.” 

Science meets with rough recognition at the 
hands of prejudiced ignorance. Humanity 
wages ceaseless war on those who seek to 
improve its conditions. It has been the his- 
tory of mankind from the beginning that 
when intellect and emotion are forced to lock 
horns, intellect, in nine cases out of ten, will be 
pushed to the wall. 

The negro man’s coffee had all dribbled 
through the slit and soaked into his gar- 
ments ; but he still sat with the bucket top in 
his hand and made no effort to go on with 
his meal. His heavy face wore a perplexed 
look, and his eyes brooded. 

Jerry leaned suddenly forward and laid his 
hand— the long, nervous hand of a musician, 


BROADOAKS. 


231 


in spite of its roughness and sunburn, on his 
brother’s knee. 

“Whar war thet body buried?” he ques- 
tioned in a low voice. 

The other man caught the implication in an 
instant. 

“Not t/zar,” he answered. “She war bur- 
ied in Steve’s garden. His wife wanted ther 
child put close by so she could ’tend to ther 
leetle grave. ’Twas ther fust she ever lost, 
an’ wimmin take comfort in such things.” 

A thought had seized hold on Jerry and 
struggled for expression. 

“Thet ha’rnt over thar,” he suggested, and 
jerked with his thumb in the direction of the 
Broadoaks graveyard. 

Again Luke apprehended his inference with 
marvelous quickness. 

“I’ve been addled with ther notion ever 
sence I hearn ’bout Steve’s baby. Thar ain’t 
been no white burvin’ in thet graveyard, 
howsumever, sence ther colonel’s mother war 
put away an’ that’s nigh ten ye’r ago. He 
couldn’t want nothin’ long o’ her this late in 
ther day. Just a passel o’ bones is about all 


232 


BROADOAKS. 


lef’ o’ them Kennedy's by now, I reckon. 
Thar’s ther old nigger, though.” 

“Any man would rutlier his folks bones 
would be let to stay whar he put ’em, ’en 
not,” Jerry remarked, “an’ ’specially his 
mother’s.” 

The signal sounded and the men rose to go 
back to their work. The negro rose likewise 
and fastened up the bucket which still con- 
tained the bulk of his food. He raised the 
box a little and slipped the little pail under it 
and slouched around to the door of the 
engine-house. The great wheel had lifted a 
bucket of ore to the surface; it rose slowly, 
swung free of the mouth of the shaft and 
veered toward the negro who reached out a 
strong iron hook and drew the bucket to the 
receiving pen and dumped out the ore. 

Redwood rode up and dismounted. He 
stood for awhile near the shaft watching the 
operations. The negro drew near, pausing 
in his work, and extended his hand for the 
bridle. Redwood surrendered it without 
turning his head, but with the customary 
formula of acknowledgment of service. His 


BROADOAKS. 


233 


communications with colored people were 
always of the briefest and dryest. There 
was none of the sympathetic affinity with 
humanity for its own sake which is a con- 
comitant of broad and tender natures, in 
Redwood’s composition. Negroes were to 
him now simply very defective and unsatis- 
factory implements which he was forced by 
circumstances to employ, in default of better, 
for the furtherance of a specific end. As 
sentimental creatures capable of love and 
pain they had no interest for him. It was a 
pity. The wag of any sort of dog’s tail is a 
pleasanter thing than the sight of his teeth. 

The horse whinnied softly and rubbed his 
nose against the negro’s shoulder as he was 
led away. They appeared to be old 
acquaintances. 

The manager came forward and accosted 
Redwood, and, after a few moments conver- 
sation, the two men entered the office 
together. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


A light burned later than usual in the 
office of the Lone Jack mine on the night of 
the thirt3 r -first of August. The miners, those 
among them who had noticed the fact, 
remembered it afterward and mentioned it to 
one another for, ordinarily, the light would 
be out and the office closed by nine o’clock — 
that is, Mr. Redwood’s office; the manager 
might be seen at all hours in his own room. 
One man testified that, in passing, he had 
glanced in at the open window and seen 
Redwood bending over his desk writing ; and 
that, even as he looked, Redwood had risen 
and walked the floor, with his hands clasped 
behind him and his head drooped, like a man 
in heavy thought. The time had been, as 
nearly as he could judge, between ten and 
eleven. He had not looked at the clock in 
the engine-room although he might easily 
have done so, for a light burned there all 
night. He would not swear to the hour 

234 


BROADOAKS. 


235 


because lie only judged from the position of 
the moon and the way the shadows fell. 

While late for Redwood to be in his office, 
it had been early for the hands to be in their 
beds, and yet deep silence had enfolded the 
cabins. Usually there would be plenty of noise 
of a social sort among the men after work 
hours. Jerry Kitchen had his banjo there 
and would thump a tune for the fellows some- 
times and the negroes, such as “hadn’t got 
no religion” would double-shuffle and cut the 
pigeon-wing to the music. There had been 
no banjo-playing that night for Jerry had 
hurt his thumb the day before and had it tied 
up in a rag with axle-grease, and all hands, 
white and black, had turned in extra early. 

The only living creature, besides Redwood 
and a stump-tail mongrel, he had seen about 
was a fellow sitting on a box near the corner 
of the engine-house. He had been leaning 
against the wall, as a weary man leans to 
ease his muscles, and the shadows thereabout 
had been dense, so that he could not make 
out which of the hands it might be, indeed, 
he had not tried to do so. The man was 


236 


BROADOAKS. 


doing no harm, and anybody had a right to 
sit there. He could not even tell whether it 
had been a white man or a negro, only he 
knew the fellow had been smoking— a whiff 
of tobacco had come to him ; plantation leaf 
it had been — the sort most of the hands 
smoked. At the moment he had not been 
conscious of observing even these details. He 
had only glanced into the office because the 
window had been open and the light inside 
appeared unusually brilliant. Redwood had 
two lights burning, close together on his 
desk. After a turn or two about the room 
Redwood had come to the window and 
looked out on the night, and, seeing him 
standing there, had given him a civil ‘good 
night,’ not recognizing him, but obeying the 
courteous custom of the country. Of what 
happened after that the man knew nothing, 
save from conjecture. 

After speaking to the miner Redwood 
turned to his desk again. Between the lamps, 
with the lights focused on it, lay a scrap of 
drawing-paper on which was traced what 
seemed to be a plan of grounds of some 


BROADOAKS. 


237 


sort. Redwood dropped into his chair and 
bent over it : his brows were drawn together, 
and he went over some calculations on the 
margin of the paper with the care which 
strives to make certainty more certain. Then 
he took his pencil and traced, near the center 
of the sketch, a tree, and from it drew lines, 
in two directions, extending to that which 
looked to be an enclosure. This done, he 
folded the paper and placed it in the breast 
pocket of his coat, lifted the day-book and 
ledger from the desk and, rising, locked them 
securely in the safe; then he glanced about 
the room to see that everything was in order, 
laid the mail in readiness for the boy whose 
business it was to go to the postoffice, and, 
finally extinguished the lights and left the 
office. 

As he stepped out into the night he remem- 
bered that his manager had come to him 
with the report of an unsafe gallery and the 
suggestion that the matter should be looked 
into at once. He had promised to give the 
thing personal attention, and had ordered 
that the hands should be kept out of that 


238 


BROADOAKS. 


part of the mine and that no explosives 
should be used until a thorough inspection 
should have been made. It was one of the 
abandoned galleries and had not been re-tim- 
bered since he took the mine — some props 
had been added, but that was all. The leads 
in that direction were almost worthless, the 
ore being mixed with copperas and blue stone. 
The security of the gallery was, however, 
important, not only to the mine, but because 
it extended, laterally, for several hundred 
yards under a much used country road, and 
any caving of the highway would occasion 
expense and inconvenience. 

Redwood walked to the mouth of the shaft. 
He noticed that one of the buckets was down, 
but attached no importance to the fact, 
knowing that they frequently were left at the 
bottom of the shaft alread}^ loaded with ore 
when the time came to stop work. There is 
never any conscientious restlessness in 
negroes about leaving a job unfinished. 

Redwood turned away to get his horse; 
passing around the corner of the engine- 
house on his way to the shed which served 


BROADOAKS. 


239 


for a stable. He had readily fallen into the 
habit of the country which required a horse 
for every transit, no matter how short the 
distance. His eye fell on a man, slouched 
against the house-side, apparently asleep. 
He did not speak to him, but went on for the 
horse, standing ready saddled, mounted, and 
rode away into the forest. 

About a mile from the mine the road 
forked, one branch leading to Eagle’s Nest 
and the other diverging, and crossing the 
wood road which led to Broadoaks past the 
old church. When he reached the Eagle’s 
Nest turn, Redwood touched his horse with 
the spur, for the animal evidenced a decided 
disposition stableward, and rode straight on. 
The moonlight was clear and lucent ; the few 
clouds lying so thin that they cast no 
shadow. Even under the trees, the way was 
distinctly visible; through the branches the 
stars showed faint and far away ; their light 
eclipsed by that of the moon. The forest 
seemed filled with sound, the jarring of tree- 
frogs, the cry of whip-poor-wills, and the 
monotonous hooting of owls ; bats flew low. 


240 


BROADOAKS. 


circling among tlie tree stems; a shadow 
flitted across an open space where the moon- 
light lay, showing that a fox had left his 
covert. The path was good, and the horse 
covered the ground with speed. 

Redwood rode straight to the old burying- 
ground, dismounted, fastened his horse to the 
limb of a tree, outside the gate, and entered 
the enclosure. He had been there many 
times during the preceding months and on a 
similar errand. The prejudice and sentiment 
— stupidity, it seemed to him, of the entire 
population, had combined to force him, or so 
he imagined, to unusual and nocturnal 
methods for the verification of a fact which 
the exercise of a modicum of common sense 
would have enabled him to establish, or dis- 
prove, in open daylight, and with little trou- 
ble. And what maddened him was the 
thought that, while standing in his light, 
these senseless idiots were standing doubly in 
their own, and that even though he should 
demonstrate this fact to them they would, in 
all probability, continue to obstruct the 
initial steps of his enterprise. 


BROADOAKS. 


241 


That the story told by the Memnon jeweler 
was correct in its main issue he now believed 
beyond a peradventure, and he only desired 
to satisfy himself of the trend of the deposit 
and procure specimens of the ore for analysis. 
With his mind clear on these two points he 
would push his suit with Rebie Kennedy, 
and, through her, work for the annihilation of 
a senseless bit of sentiment, or, if that result 
should be beyond him, at all events, the 
removal of its obstructiveness. The glimpse 
which he had obtained into that which he 
supposed to be the arcana of the girl’s nature 
had given him renewed hope. He would 
“fight the devil with fire” he told himself, 
and smiled with a consciousness of power, 
and the thought that he had at last secured 
a fulcrum for his will. Sentiment should 
meet sentiment in the issue, and love for the 
living should try conclusions with tenderness 
for the memory of the dead. When he should 
be able to bring about this crisis he had no 
fear as to the result. 

In his calculations Redwood was guilty of 

the ordinary human blunder of gifting his 
16 


242 


BROADOAKS. 


own will with omnipotence. And of blind- 
ness to the fact that the limitations of the 
material militate against a man’s getting all 
of the forces of life into the grasp of his hand. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


Redwood proceeded at once to the church, 
took a key from his pocket, unlocked it and 
entered. The lock was an old-fashioned 
brass affair of the sort prevalent with most 
of the doors of the neighborhood, and 
Redwood had easily found a key at Eagle’s 
Nest which would fit it. The light in the 
building was dim, owing to the tall, narrow 
windows being overgrown with ivy, long 
trails of which hung through many a broken 
pane; but Redwood was perfectly familiar 
with the place. He ascended the pulpit steps 
and opened the heavy wooden door, pausing 
for a moment, as it swung from his hand, to 
strike a light. The pulpit floor, raised about 
three feet above the level of the chancel, 
which in turn was a foot above that of the 
body of the church, was half covered with 
dirt, a pile of which was heaped beside a 
loose plank which stuck up as though it had 
been roughly pryed from its place. The 

243 


244 


BROADOAKS. 


flicker of the match in Redwood’s hands 
gave the rent an uncanny resemblance to an 
open grave with the earth heaped up beside 
it. Redwood lighted a lantern, of the sort 
used by policemen, and took from a corner a 
spade and other implements for digging, and 
also a heavy rubber blanket like those used 
by miners and ranchmen for camping pur- 
poses. He took the lantern also, thinking 
that there might be need of it ere his task 
should be completed. 

The force of habit caused him to lock the 
door and put the key in his pocket. His 
horse whinnied as he stepped out into the 
moonlight and sidled around, jerking his 
bridle taut, and pulling against the limb, as 
though under the stress of excitement. 
Redwood spoke to him, and, laying his imple- 
ments on the ground, went out to see what 
could have occasioned his uneasiness. Then 
he became suddenly conscious that nature 
shared the unrest and that he himself was 
becoming infected with the general feeling. 
The air was hushed and breathless, the 
woods silent with the stillness that precedes 


SROADOAKS. 


245 


convulsion ; not a twig stirred, not a leaf or 
blossom moved, not a night-bird nor insect 
sounded a note. He could feel the flesh of the 
horse quiver as the animal pressed against 
him, and, involuntarily, he laid hold of the 
bit lest terror should cause the beast to 
break away. Then he waited, perfectly col- 
lected, and able to observe his own sensa- 
tions and those of nature. He knew from 
experience the symptoms of the coming 
phenomenon and awaited the result. 

In a moment it came ; the long, sickening 
shiver, the rocking and vibrating, accom- 
panied by the rumble and roar of imprisoned 
forces, the distinct throes, as of a monster in 
pain, as the earthquake passed under foot, 
and the closing vibrations as it rolled away 
toward the northeast. 

Redwood waited, soothing the horse, until 
all immediate danger of a recurrence of the 
shocks seemed to be over. The loss of time 
made him restive. It almost appeared as if 
the forces of the universe, spiritual and 
material, were arrayed against the accom- 
plishment of his purpose. He had half a 


246 


RROADOAKS. 


mind to loosen the bridle and let the horse 
find his way back to his stall; but, apart 
from the aversion every man has, when it 
comes to the point, to letting his horse wan- 
der about the woods and fields with the sad- 
dle on, there was an unacknowledged under- 
current of consciousness that the vitality 
and nearness of the creature was a relief and 
comfort. It gave the feeling of companion- 
ship with something living and finite which 
even the boldest and strongest men will 
crave when engaged in strange or hazardous 
undertakings. 

After awhile he re-entered the enclosure and 
carried the things taken from the pulpit to 
the grave, opened a few weeks before. It was 
a part of the ill-luck that had doggedhis quest 
from first to last, Redwood thought, that he 
should have been away from the neighbor- 
hood when that grave had been made. Had 
he been on the spot then, the necessity for 
that which he was about to do would have 
been obviated. It was irritating to think of. 

He had made examinations in several direc- 
tions, taking bearings from the English oak, 


BROADOAKS. 


247 


and making his excavations under cover of 
those old* marble slabs which seemed 
fashioned for the concealment of secrets. 
The search had been only partially successful, 
the gravel yielding enough ore to dangle hope 
before his eyes, but not near enough, in Red- 
wood’s opinion, to justify the origination of 
that story of auriferous spadefuls. Before his 
departure for the North he had marked this 
spot, feeling certain, from directions and indi- 
cations, that here, if any where outside of old 
Dr. Kennedy’s own resting-place, the vein 
might be crossed. On his return he had been 
too busy at the mine to have time for his 
more personal monomania, and then had dis- 
covered that there had been an interment in 
the very spot which he wished to examine. 

When the idea of that which he was doing 
had first occurred to Redwood he had thrust 
it aside with a natural human shrinking ; but 
the haunting of that dream of gold and the 
visions which would keep rising of the 
delights and above all of the power attend- 
ant on the possession of gold, combined with 
the threatened failure of his hopes at the mine, 


248 


BROADOAKS. 


had operated to weaken and finally to over- 
throw the instinct of respect and, almost, 
awe, which the dead, by the mere fact of that 
mysterious change, seem potent to impose 
tipon the living. The thought, once enter- 
tained, had speedily become assimilated and, 
as would be inevitable in a nature such as 
Redwood’s, had resulted in execution. With 
action had come additional blunting of the 
sensibilities until the man had come to feel 
the influences in connection with the Broad- 
oaks graveyard to be simply so many 
obstacles to be swept out of the track of his 
will. 

An hour passed ; then another — the night 
deepened toward dawn : the moonlight 
waned, slipping through the branches with a 
pale glimmer that foretold its withdrawal; 
the interval approached during which there 
would be the silent struggle for supremacy of 
opposing lights. A mist began to rise, slowly, 
an inch at a time, lifted by surface currents of 
air. The worker in the graveyard toiled on. 
There had been little rain since the burial, 
and the soil had not become compacted, so 


BROADOARS. 


249 


that its removal was not difficult. Redwood 
had spread the blanket beside the grave and 
cast the earth out on it. He did not wish to 
give himself unnecessary trouble in removing 
traces of his work. Every now and then he 
would pause and flash the light of his lantern 
on the sides of the pit and on the soil as he 
cast it out. Occasionally he would take up 
portions and throw them into a specimen 
bag which lay beside his coat on the grave 
of the old negro who had been drowned so 
long ago. 

The pit deepened so that the worker stood 
to his knees — then to his waist, and, slowly, 
lower, until his shoulders barely reached the 
verge: the spade struck against wood. Sud- 
denly there was a half-smothered ejaculation, 
and the light was concentrated in one cor- 
ner of the grave— he had found that which he 
sought ! 

Away in the woods a bird stirred and 
began his morning call — “ sweetheart ! sweet- 
heart : !” he seemed to say and another bird 
answered. The mist had risen to the tree- 
tops and hung white, like wraiths of rain- 


250 


RROABOAKS. 


clouds. From the hill-side, where a path 
came down through the laurel-brakes, there 
came the sound of a stumble, as though, 
under a heavy tread, a stone had turned and 
slipped out of place; and twigs snapped as 
though roughly grasped and parted. The 
horse moved and gave a low whinnying call 
that had in it a note of impatience, and recog- 
nition. 

Redwood drove his spade in, bracing his 
back against the side of the grave, and press- 
ing on it with his foot. A quantity of earth 
fell with a soft thud on the corner of the box 
which contained the coffin, a portion of which 
was uncovered. Among it was a fragment 
of quartz which Redwood raised and held in 
the light. It was seamed with gold, in thin 
threads, and in one place the metal had col- 
lected in a tiny shining nugget. Redwood’s 
lips parted in a hard red line ; his breath came 
quick through his dilating nostrils ; the gold- 
fever burned in his veins and flamed in his 
eyes. He snatched up a pick and bent eagerly 
to his work. A small segment of the quartz 
vein was visible and he strove to clear away 


BROADOAKS. 


251 


the earth sufficiently to observe its direction 
with more accuracy. 

What was that ? It sounded like the click 
of a latch, hastily let fall! Was that the 
tread of feet brushing through the grass 
where the mist lay collected into dewdrops ? 
What was it that neared the grave and bent 
over, gazing down on the stooping figure 
below ? 

Redwood had bared the vein for a little 
space and was using the point of his pick as a 
wedge to pry off a partially dislodged frag- 
ment of the rock. His attention was con- 
centrated ; absorbed by the work he had in 
hand : he was alike unconscious of the coffin 
beneath his feet and of danger which menaced 
him from above. His head was bare : on his 
forehead the moisture stood in beads, like 
rain-drops on marble. 

A dark hand stole downward for the spade 
which leaned against the side of the grave ; a 
dark face, convulsed with passion, loomed 
threateningly through the mist. There was 
a swift blow, driven down with the point of 
the implement, followed by a long shudder- 


252 


BROADOAKS. 


ing cry that cleft the silence and seemed to 
quiver away through space like a thing of 
life. 

The horse, driven well-nigh frantic by this 
second terror, snorted, reared, tore his rein 
from its fastening and dashed away into the 
mist-enshrouded woods at a headlong gallop. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


The earthquake shock while, of itself, not 
severe enough to cause any material disturb- 
ance had been potent to effect a serious 
change where the conditions had been favor- 
able. The condemned galleryat the Lone Jack 
mine had settled solidly down for the space 
of a quarter of a mile; broken timbers, earth 
and debris filling the cavity in what looked 
to be a hopeless mass. The subsidence had 
commenced a trifle beyond the point where 
the new supports stopped ; about thirty 
yards from the main shaft, and what had 
been a public road was now a long, unsightly 
gash in the surface of the earth. 

And about the mine there was great excite- 
ment, for two men were missing. 

The news circled like a fiery cross ; sped by 
the strange system of verbal telegraph prev- 
alent among negroes. It produced consider- 
able consternation and a general rally to the 
mine, everv man in the community, white and 

253 


254 


BROADOAKS. 


colored, being intent on the gratification of 
his curiosity, and anxious to render such 
service, in the emergency, as might be in his 
power. 

“This is terrible news about Redwood,” 
Edward Kennedy remarked as he helped his 
brother to dismount near the engine-house. 
He had separated himself from the group of 
men around the shaft and come forward 
when he saw Colonel Kennedy ride up. His 
eyes were troubled and his jovial face was 
clouded with anxiety. For the time, he felt, 
as did every man on the ground, gentle and 
simple, that Redwood was no stranger 
swept from their midst, but a friend who had 
partaken of their bread and salt, and who 
had been cut down untimely. 

“Is it certain that he was in the mine?” 
Colonel Kennedy inquired. 

“Almost positive. There is nothing else to 
conclude. He can’t be found anywhere ; and 
he was known to be in his office a short time 
before the shock. One of the men saw him 
there as late as half past ten, or thereabouts. 
As soon as the subsidence was discovered, 


BROADOAKS. 


255 


which was pretty soon after the shock, for 
the manager had that gallery on his mind, 
they sent over to Eagle’s Nest for Redwood. 
He wasn’t there — hadn’t been there. This 
morning his horse was found close by here, 
still saddled. He is usually fastened to a 
hook under that shed. The bridle was 
broken, and it is pretty certain he jerked 
loose under terror of the shock. The horse 
being here proves that Redwood didn’t leave 
the place. If he had the horse would have 
been found in the Eagle’s Nest stable.” 

“Was anyone with him? We heard a 
negro was missing also.” 

“There is — our man, Patrick.” He used 
the appropriative pronoun from force of 
habit. “Pat attended to Redwood’s horse 
during the day. He raised the colt for Dick 
Kennedy and was fond of him. The hands 
say Pat spoke of going home last night ; his 
half-sister was ailing and sent him word to 
come. He must have changed his mind, 
however, for the woman says he did n’t put 
in an appearance. Since that spell of rheu- 
matism he had in March Pat has worked 


256 


BROADOAKS. 


above ground; he was employed about the 
engine-house. He must have been about 
there last night and gone down with 
Redwood. There was an empty bucket in 
the shaft this morning.” 

The brothers moved forward to the mouth 
of the shaft. They were met and surrounded 
by a crowd of eager talkers — conjectures, 
assertions and explanations were rife, and a 
theory of events for the night before was 
evolved which appeared to meet the general 
requirements. 

It was quite clear, they said, that Redwood 
had been troubled about that gallery. He 
had given orders about it and proposed to 
make a thorough examination of the place 
himself within the next few hours. His head- 
man, the foreign miner whom he had 
installed as general superintendent, under 
himself, had been talking to him until quite 
late, and together they had sketched a plan 
for improvements in all the galleries in the 
old part of the mine, and had made calcula- 
tions. Left to himself, Redwood must have 
become interested, or troubled, about some 


BROADOAKS. 


257 


particular point and have decided on satis- 
fying himself by instant examination. He 
was an imperious man — was Redwood — 
and must always carry his point as speed- 
ily as might be. He was different from the 
men of the community, who were generally 
willing to take things easy, and to come 
gradually to an exertion, when not under the 
stress of violent emotion. With this idea of 
prompt verification of something or other, 
dominating him, Redwood had gone down 
into the mine; taking the negro with him, 
and been somewhere in the gallery when the 
shock had come. 

When this climax would be reached, the 
voices would grow pitiful ; it was such a hor- 
rible fate to overtake a man in the discharge 
of his duty. That was the way they spoke 
of it; deploring his excess of zeal, and giving 
him credit for an overweening sense of 
responsibility toward his employers, and 
toward the miners under his charge. 

“We-all never done Redwood jestice, I 
reckon,” drawled Jerry Kitchen, looking 
thoughtfully into the black mouth of the 

17 


258 


BROADOAKS. 


shaft. “He war a mighty headin’ sort o’ 
chap, an’ liked to move things right along 
ther road he blazed out; but he war n’t no 
.shirk hisse’f n’other. Ef he seed a fence, an’ 
aimed to cross it, he’d clinch ther bit an’ 
dash ahead. He’d git thar— or bu’st try- 
in’.” 

“Thet’s so!” acquiesced Luke ; all unwit- 
ting of the hand which he and his brother 
had had in bringing down on the unfortu- 
nate man, whose supposed fate they deplored, 
a catastrophe infinitely more horrible. 

“ Can nothing be done ? ” 

Colonel Kennedy’s tone as he made the 
demand was sharp: he looked around upon 
them with coercive eyes. A vision of his 
daughter’s face, when Crum had burst in 
upon them with the news haunted him. He 
did not understand yet the extent of the 
harm, but he dumbly felt that it might be far- 
reaching. And then the idea of standing 
supine while men lay crushed under that hor- 
rible mass was unendurable. 

The manager was below, they told him. 
He had been in the mine for hours, and relays 


BROADOAKS. 


259 


of volunteers had followed him at intervals. 
There were forty men, all told, examining the 
mine and doing their best to discover the 
extent of the damage, and if there were any 
possibility of hope. Tom Kennedy had gone 
down with the last batch. They only 
waited for directions : fifty men stood ready 
to work until they should drop if a point of 
departure could be given them. 

About mid-day the men began to come up 
out of the mine. The report they brought 
was very discouraging. Two other galleries 
— one running parallel with the ruined lead, 
and one intersecting it, were pronounced 
unsafe: the shock had unsettled all the old 
part of the mine, so that much work would 
be necessary should the company continue 
operations; every bit of old timber in the 
place had started. A recurrence of the 
shock would cause all the galleries on that 
side of the shaft to collapse. 

When asked whether there was, in his opin- 
ion, any hope for the men supposed to be 
buried below, the manager shook his head. 
No hope at all, he said, the gallery had been 


260 


BROADOAKS. 


in a very bad condition and tbe wreck 
appeared to be absolute. Even if the precise 
spot in which the men were, at the time of the 
accident, could be determined, any effort 
could only be for the recovery of the bodies. 
The other men, who had shared in the 
examination concurred with him, and a sense 
of hopelessness and futility gradually dis- 
seminated itself through the throng. There 
seemed nothing to be done. Men spoke in 
lowered tones, and when they rode away, by 
two and threes, leaving only the regular force 
in possession of the mine, they held their 
horses to a walk as in the custom when rid- 
ing from a grave. 

The three Kennedy’s rode homeward 
together. They spoke little by the way, 
being oppressed by a sense of catastrophe. 
As they were about to separate at the Broad- 
oaks gate Tom said slowly : 

“In life I was hard on the man at times, 
because his ways were not our ways, nor his 
thoughts our thoughts. Death has convicted 
me of injustice— I beg his pardon.” 


BROADOAKS. 


261 


He lifted his hat and sat silently on his 
horse for a moment with his head uncovered. 
The other men followed his example. 

In their ignorance of the true state of the 
case the}" had reached conclusions tenderer 
and more human than would have been pos- 
sible could they have known. And rever- 
ently, regretfully, one phase of the omnipres- 
ent sentiment entombed in honor the man on 
whom another phase had ruthlessly trampled 
down the earth not many hours before. 


CHAPTER XX. 


The manager’s telegram was responded to 
by a stirring young lawyer, empowered by 
the company to take charge of the affairs of 
the mine and, for the present, at least, to sus- 
pend all operations. Any effort for the recov- 
ery of the bodies, within reason, the lawyer 
announced, the company would be willing to 
make, especially as the case involved a man of 
as much importance to them as Mr. Stuart Red- 
wood, and a second, and more comprehensive 
examination of the scene of the catastrophe 
was at once inaugurated. But after several 
days activity the new man was forced to the 
conclusion, already arrived at by the man- 
ager— that the matter appeared absolutely 
barren of hope of successful issue and that 
the continued expenditure of time and labor 
in the attempt would be abortive. As well 
search for an object at the bottom of the sea 
as for the bodies of men buried under a land- 
slip which extended a quarter of a mile. 

262 


BROADOAKS. 


263 


Redwood’s affairs were found to be in per- 
fect order, and his effects were taken charge 
of by the New York lawyer, to be, by him, 
transmitted to the young fellow’s relatives in 
the North. He had no immediate family, and 
a couple of aunts in the New England village, 
with whom he appeared to have maintained 
a desultory sort of intercourse, represented 
the nearest of his kindred. The case seemed 
inexpressibly pitiful because, so far as could 
be ascertained, the poor young man’s 
untimely death would bring heart sorrow to 
no living being. 

And the old church yard held the secret, as 
through ages it had held the gold, deep hid- 
den within its bosom. For when the sun had 
risen above the hills that August morning, 
lifting with shining fingers the curtain of the 
mist, there had been, to outward seeming, 
little change in the aspect of the place, and of 
the tragedy no evidence remained save a little 
loose earth, scattered about, where a grave 
had been hastily mounded up anew. 

Of the chief actor in the scene all trace was 
wiped out as completely as though, in truth, 


264 


BROADOAKS. 


the earth, as was supposed, had swallowed 
him. Only, many months afterward, the 
newspapers had a short paragraph about the 
finding of a negro, by a party of hunters, in 
a lonely place in the mountains of south- 
western Virginia. He had been in a miser- 
ably reduced condition from exposure and 
want, and would give no account of himself. 
He was described as a heavy, thick-set negro, 
slow of speech, and almost idiotic. He 
appeared to labor continually under morbid 
excitement, would .shrink and shiver at a 
noise, and cower, as from some invisible, but 
ever present image of terror. It had been 
pronounced, by the local physician, a case of 
mania, super-induced by unknown, probably 
physical, causes, and the man had been con- 
signed to the insane ward of the county poor- 
house, where he died. 

To Rebie the shock had been grievous, and 
she was a long time in recovering from it. In 
the first horror of the news the thought of 
Redwood’s death caused her such pain 
that she mistook sympathetic realization of 
its pathos for a deeper emotion and was well- 


BROADOAKS. 


265 


nigh persuaded that she loved him. But as 
time went on her vision cleared and a more 
accurate perception of the relations of things 
was born within her. The romantic trend of 
her imagination made her unwilling, for a 
time, to acknowledge to herself that the pow- 
erful influence which Redwood had exercised 
over her had been intellectual fascination; 
the attraction of the unaccustomed rather 
than more fervid emotion. 

Their last interview would return, during 
the weeks immediately following Redwood’s 
death, and haunt her with a feverish persist- 
ence which quickened her imagination into a 
strange fancy of spiritual presence, and of 
being still under the dominion of his will. 
This state of mind reacted upon her nerves 
and produced a depression and languor which 
misled Colonel Kennedy entirely, and trou- 
bled him no little. 

“I’m afraid she loved that fellow,” he 
remarked to his eldest daughter in an anx- 
ious tone, as Rebie passed the window, look- 
ing very pale and abstracted. “She seems to 


266 


BROADOAKS. 


he wilting away, like a half parched plant.” 

But Bernard had truer insight. 

“No,” she said slowly, “she did not love 
him. He loved her; and he filled her imagi- 
nation more full of new pictures and interests 
than it had ever been before. Rebie has been 
in a state of tension for months past— first 
with Mr. Redwood, then with Geoffrey Bruce, 
and now with Mr. Redwood again. This is 
the reaction — it would have inevitably come ; 
even without the terrible shock we have all 
experienced. Give her time to work the mat- 
ter out for herself. My own belief is that 
Rebie’s heart has, as yet, been only stirred 
upon the surface. She is unconscious of the 
fact herself; but she isn’t in love with any- 
one.” 

“I wish Geoff Bruce were here,” fretted the 
father, feeling very helpless and utterly 
incompetent to cope with the situation. 
“He might help to arouse her interest and 
renew her grip on life.” 

Bernard smiled indulgently. A man’s lack 
of comprehension of feminine subtleties 
always touched her with amusement. 


BROADOAKS. 


267 


“Geoff’s cause will prosper best without 
his presence,” she declared. “He would cer- 
tainly begin to make love to her again if he 
were here, and that would be, in her present 
state of mind, about the worst blunder he 
could commit. Let me take her away for a 
month. The Richard Kennedys have gone 
down to Virginia Beach, and Cousin Clara 
would look after us. Everything would be 
different — utterly unconnected with the peo- 
ple and events that have filled the last few 
mouths for her. The new influences will help 
her mind to recover its tone.” 

And so it was decided. Only Colonel Ken- 
nedy, still persisting in the idea which domi- 
nated him, remarked, when preliminaries had 
been arranged : 

“Don’t you think, Bernard, that Geoff 
might run down to Virginia Beach for a day 
or so toward the end of your visit? He 
might come the last few days, you know, and 
escort you and Rebie home.” 

His daughter bestowed a kiss on the top of 
his handsome head, where the gray hair was 
wearing thin, and softly patted his shoulder. 


268 


BROADOAKS. 


“What a match-making old father it is!” 
she smiled, “and how persistent in his 
schemes. Well, yes — perhaps he might come. 
At the very last, you understand. I’ll write 
and let you know. She will relish the sight 
of a home face by that time. We both will.” 

Her smile deepened ; and a beautiful tender 
expression stole into her eyes. The father 
watched her, with a feeling of comfort, and 
the thought that Bernard was a wise and 
loving woman in whose hands the matter 
might be left with safety. And his mind 
went back into the past and lingered over 
his own love time, and his daughter seemed 
to him to have a look of her mother. 


THE END. 


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